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LIBRARY. 



'■******»*, 



"THE OLD SWIMMIN'-HOLE" AND 'LEVEN MORE POEMS 



NEGHBORLY POEMS 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR 



NEGHBORLY POEMS, 

Including "the Old Swimmin'-Hole." 

SKETCHES IN PROSE, 

Including the Boss Girl. 

AFTERWHILES: Dialect 

And Other Poetry. 

PIPES O'PAN: Five Sketches 

And Fifty Poems. 

RHYMES OF CHILDHOOD: Dialect 
And Other Verses. 

THE FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT: 

A Fantastic Drama in Verse. 

AN OLD SWEETHEART OF MINE: A Flat Quarto 
Illustrated in Colors. 

published by 
THE BOWEN-MERRILL CO., INDIANAPOLIS. 



IN ENGLAND- 



OLD-FASHIONED ROSES: 

Poems, Dialect and Various. 

published by 
LONGMANS, GREEN & CO., LONDON. 




"When I ust to lean above it on the old sickamore." 



33 



Post C 



"THE OLDSWIMMIN'-HOLE 
'LEVEN MORE POEMS 




NEGHBORLY POEMS 



ON FRIENDSHIP 

GRIEF AND 



FARM-LIFE 



BENJ. F. JOHNSON, OF BOONE 

[James Whitcomb Riley.] ) ^ ^ 3 



Post C 

NOV 



*\o-' 



1895 







LIBRA* 



THE BOWEN-MERRILL CO 

INDIANAPOLIS, IND 






DEDICATION 

TO 

THE EVER-FAITHFUL, WHOLE-SOULED, HONEST-HEARTED 

HOOSIER FRIENDS, IN COUNTRY AND IN TOWN, 

THIS LITTLE BOOK 

IS GRATEFULLY AND LOVINGLY INSCRIBED. 



By Troasf « 



Copyrighted 1883 by J. W. Riley. 
Copyrighted 1 891 by J. W. Riley. 







PREFACE AND SUB-PREFACE. 

As far back into boyhood as the writer's memory 
may intelligently go, the "country poet" is most 
pleasantly recalled. He was, and is, as common 
as the "country fiddler," and as full of good old- 
fashioned music. Not a master of melody, indeed, 
but a poet, certainly — 

"Who, through long days of labor, 

And nights devoid of ease, 
Still heard in his soul the music 

Of wonderful melodies." 

And it is simply the purpose of this series of dia- 
lectic studies to reflect the real worth of this homely 
child of nature, and to echo faithfully, if possible, 
the faltering music of his song. 



In adding to this series, as the writer has, for 
many years, been urged to do, and answering as 
steadfast a demand of Benj. F. Johnson's first and 
oldest friends, it has been decided that this further 
work of his be introduced to the reader of the 
volume as was the old man's first work to the 
reader of the newspaper of nearly ten years ago. 

Directly, then, referring to the Indianapolis 



vi PREFACE. 



Daily Journal — under whose management the 
writer had for some time been employed, — from issue 
of date June 17, 1882, under editorial caption of 
"A Boone County Pastoral," this article is herewith 
quoted : 

Benj. F. Johnson, of Boone county, who considers the 
Journal a "very valubul" newspaper, writes to inclose us an 
original poem, desiring that we kindly accept it for publica- 
tion, as "many neghbors and friends is astin' him to have the 
same struck off." 

Mr. Johnson thoughtfully informs us that he is "no edjucat- 
ed man," but that he has, "from childhood up tel old enugh to 
vote, alius wrote more er less poetry, as many of an albun in 
the neghborhood can testify." Again, he says that he writes 
"from the hart out;" and there is a touch of genuine pathos in 
the frank avowal, "Thare is times when I write the tears rolls 
down my cheeks." 

In all sincerity, Mr. Johnson, we are glad to publish the 
poem you send, and just as you have written it. That is its 
greatest charm. Its very defects compose its excellence. You 
need no better education than the one from which emanates 
"The Old Swimmin'-Hole." It is real poetry, and all the 
more tender and lovable for the unquestionable evidence it 
bears of having been written "from the hart out. " The only 
thing we find to — but hold! Let us first lay the poem before 
the reader: 

Here followed the poem, "The Old Swimmin'- 
Hole," entire — the editorial comment ending as 
follows : 

The only thing now, Mr. Johnson— as we were about to 



PREFACE. 



observe — the only thing we find to criticise, at all relative to 
the poem, is your closing statement to the effect that "It was 
wrote to go to the tune of 'The Captin with his Whiskers !' " 
You should not have told us that, O Rare Ben. Johnson ! 

A week later, in the Journal of date June 24th, 
followed this additional mention of "Benj. F. 
Johnson, of Boone : " 

It is a pleasure for us to note that the publication of the 
poem of "The Old Swimmin'-Hole," to which the Journal, 
with just pride, referred last week, has proved almost as great 
a pleasure to its author as to the hosts of delighted readers 
who have written in its praise, or called to personally indoiise 
our high opinion of its poetic value. We have just received 
a letter from Mr. Johnson, the author, inclosing us another 
lyrical performance, which in many features even surpasses the 
originality and spirit of the former effort. Certainly the least 
that can be said of it is that it stands a thorough proof of our 
first assertion, that the author, though by no means a man of 
learning and profound literary attainments, is none the less a 
true poet and an artist. The letter, accompanying this later 
amaranth of blooming wildwood verse, we publish in its entirety, 
assured that Mr. Johnson's many admirers will be charmed, as 
we have been, at the delicious glimpse he gives us of his in- 
spiration, modes of study, home-life and surroundings. 

"To the Editer of the Indanoplus Jurnal: 

"Respected Sir — The paper is here, markm' the old swim- 
min'-hole, my poetry which you seem to like so well. I joy 
to see it in print, and I thank you, hart and voice, for speak- 
in' of its merrits in the way in which you do. I am glad you 
thought it was real poetry, as you said in your artikle. But I 
make bold to ast you what was your idy in sayin' I had 



viii PREFA CE. 



ortent of told you it went to the tune I spoke of in my last. 
I felt highly flatered tel I got that fur. Was it because you 
don't know the tune refered to in the letter ? Er wasent some 
words spelt right er not ? Still ef you hadent of said somepin 
aginst it Ide of thought you was makin' fun. As I said before 
1 well know my own unedjucation, but I don't think that is 
any reason the feelin's of the soul is stunted in theyr growth 
however. 'Juge not less ye be juged,' says The Good Book, and 
so say I , ef I thought you was makin' fun of the lines that I 
wrote and which you done me the onner to have printed off in 
sich fine style that I have read it over and over again in the 
paper you sent, and I would like to have about three more ef 
you can spare the same and state by mail what they will come 
at. All nature was in tune day before yisterday when your 
paper come to hand. It had ben a-raining hard fer some 
days, but that morning opened up as clear as a whissel. No 
clouds was in the sky, and the air was bammy with the warm 
sunshine and the wet smell of the earth and the locus blossoms 
and the flowrs and pennyroil and boneset. I got up, the 
first one about the place, and went forth to the plesant fields. 
I fed the stock with lavish hand and wortered them in merry 
glee, they was no bird in all the land no happier than me. I 
have jest wrote a verse of poetry in this letter; see ef you can 
find it. I also send you a whole poem which was wrote off 
the very day your paper come. I started it in the morning 
I have so feebly tride to pictur to you and wound her up by 
suppertime, besides doin' a fare day's work around the place. 
Ef you print this one I think you will like it better than the 
other. This aint a sad poem like the other was, but you will 
find it full of careful thought. I pride myself on that. I also 
send you 30 cents in stamps fer you to take your pay out of 
fer the other papers I said, and also fer three more with 



PREFACE. ix 



this in it ef you have it printed and oblige. Ef you don't 
print this poem, keep the stamps and send me three more 
papers with the other one in — makin' the sum totul of six (6) 
papers altogether in full. Ever your true friend, 

Benj. F. Johnson. 
"N. B. — The tune of this one is The Bold Privateer." 

Here followed the poem, " Thoughts Fer The 
Discuraged Farmer/' — and here, too, fittingly ends 
any comment but that which would appear trivial 
and gratuitous. 

Simply, in briefest conclusion, the hale, sound, 
artless, lovable character of Benj. F. Johnson remains, 
in the writer's mind, as from the first, far less a 
fiction than a living, breathing, vigorous reality. — So 
strong, indeed, has his personality been made mani- 
fest, that many times, in visionary argument with the 
sturdy old myth over certain changes from the 
original forms of his productions, he has so incon- 
tinently beaten down all suggestions as to a less 
incongruous association of thoughts and words, to- 
gether with protests against his many violations of 
poetic method, harmony and grace, that nothing was 
left the writer but to submit to what has always 
seemed — and in truth still seems — a superior wisdom 

of dictation. 

J. W. R. 

Indianapolis, jfuly i8gi. 



CONTENTS 

PROEM— The Delights of our Childhood is soon past Away 

The Old Swimmin'-Hole i 

Thoughts fer the Discuraged Farmer .... 3 

A Summer's Day 5 

A Hymb of Faith 8 

Worter-Melon Time 10 

My Philosofy . 13 

When the Frost is on the Punkin 16 

On the Death of Little Mahala Ashcraft ... 18 

The Mulberry Tree 20 

To my old Neghbor, William Leachman ... 22 

My Fiddle . . „ .26 

The Clover 28 

Us Farmers in the Country, as the Seasons go and Come . 31 

Erasmus Wilson 33 

My Ruthers . 38 

OK^a Dead Babe 40 

A Old Played-out Song 41 

"Coon-dog Wess" 44 

Perfesser John Clark Ridpath 50 



CONTENTS 



A Tale of the Airly Days 53 

"Mylo Jones's Wife" 55 

On a Splendud Match 58 

Old John Clevenger on Buckeyes 59 

The Hoss 64 

Ezra House 68 

APen-Pictur' 71 

Wet-weather Talk 75 

Thoughts on a Pore Joke 78 

A Mortul Prayer 79 

The First Bluebird 81 

Evagene Baker 82 

On any Ordenary Man 85 

Town and Country 86 

Lines Writ fer Isaac Bradwell 88 

Decoration Day on the Place 89 

Dialect in Literature 95 

Originally contributed to The Forum — reprinted here by permission 



'THE OLD SWIMMIN'-HOLE" AND 'LEVEN MORE POEMS 



NEGHBORLY POEMS 



THE DELIGHTS of our childhood is soon passed away, 

And our gloryus youth it departs, — 
And yit, dead and burried, they's blossoms of May 

Ore theyr medderland graves in our harts. 
So, friends of my barefooted days on the farm, 

Whether trnant in city er not, 
God prosper you same as He^s prosperin" 1 me, 

Whilse your past haint despised er f ergot. 

Oh ! they^s notkiiv ', at mom, thafs as grand unto me 

As the glory s of Natchur so fare, — 
With the Spring in the breeze, and the bloom in the trees, 

And the htim of the bees ev'rywhare ! 
The green hi the woods, and the birds in the boughs, 

And the dew spangled over the fields ; 
And the bah of the sheep and the bawl of the cows 

And the call from the house to your meals ! 

Then ho ! fer your brekfast ! and ho ! fer the toil 

That waiteth alike man and beast ! 
Oh! its soon with my team Pll be turnhi' tip soil, 

Whilse the sun shoulders up in the East 
Ore the tops of the ellums and beeches and oaks, 

To smile his godspeed on the plow, 
And the furry and seed, and the Man in his need, 

And the joy of the swet of his brow ! 



THE OLD SWIMMIN'- HOLE AND 'LEVEN 
MORE POEMS. 



THE OLD SWIMMIN' -HOLE. 

Oh! the old swimmin'-hole! whare the crick so still and deep 

Looked like a baby-river that was laying half asleep, 

And the gurgle of the worter round the drift jest below 

Sounded like the laugh of something we onc't ust to know 

Before we could remember anything but the eyes 

Of thp angels lookin' out as we left Paradise; 

But the merry days of youth is beyond our controle, 

And it's hard to part ferever with the old swimmin'-hole. 

Oh! the old swimmin'-hole! In the happy days of yore, 
When I ust to lean above it on the old sickamore, 
Oh! it showed me a face in its warm sunny tide 
That gazed back at me so gay and glorified, 
It made me love myself, as I leaped to caress 
My shadder smilin' up at me with such tenderness. 
But them days is past and gone, and old Time's tuck his toll 
From the old man come back to the old swimmin'-hole. 

I 



THE OLD SWIMMIN'-HOLE. 



Oh! the old swimmin'-hole! In the long, lazy days 
When the hum-drum of school made so many run-a-ways, 
How plesant was the jurney down the old dusty lane, 
Whare the tracks of our bare feet was all printed so plane 
You could tell by the dent of the heel and the sole 
They was lots o' fun on hands at the old swimmin'-hole. 
But the lost joys is past ! Let your tears in sorrow roll 
Like the rain that ust to dapple up the old swimmin'-hole. 

Thare the bullrushes growed, and the cattails so tall, 
And the sunshine and shadder fell over it all; 
And it mottled the worter with amber and gold 
Tel the glad lillies rocked in the ripples that rolled; 
And the snake-feeder's four gauzy wings fluttered by 
Like the ghost of a daisy dropped out of the sky, 
Or a wownded apple-blossom in the breeze's controle 
As it cut acrost some orchurd to'rds the old swimmin'-hole. 

Oh! the old swimmin'-hole! When I last saw the place, 
The scenes was all changed, like the change in my face; 
The bridge of the railroad now crosses the spot 
Whare the old divin'-log lays sunk and fergot. 
And I stray down the banks whare the trees ust to be — 
But never again will theyr shade shelter me ! 
And I wish in my sorrow I could strip to the soul, 
And dive off in my grave like the old swimmin'-hole. 



THOUGHTS PER DISCURAGED FARMER. 3 



THOUGHTS FER THE DISCURAGED FARMER. 

The summer winds is sniffin' round the bloomin' locus' trees; 
And the clover in the pastur' is a big day fer the bees, 
And they been a-swiggin honey, above board and on the sly, 
Tel they stutter in theyrbuzzin' and stagger as they fly. 
The flicker on the fence-rail 'pears to jest spit on his wings 
And roll up his feathers, by the sassy way he sings; 
And the hoss-fly is a-whettin'-up his forelegs fer biz, 
And the off-mare is a-switchin' all of her tale they is. 

You can hear the blackbirds jawin' as they f oiler up the plow — 
Oh, theyr bound to git theyr brekfast, and theyr not a carin' 

how; 
So they quarrel in the furries, and they quarrel on the wing — 
But theyr peaceabler in pot -pies than any other thing: 
And its when I git my shotgun drawed up in stiddy rest, 
She's as full of tribbelation as a yeller-jacket's nest; 
And a few shots before dinner, when the sun's a-shinin' right, 
Seems to kindo-sorto sharpen up a feller's appetite! 

They's been a heap o' rain, but the sun's out to-day, 

And the clouds of the wet spell is all cleared away, 

And the woods is all the greener, and the grass is greener still; 

It may rain again to-morry, but I don't think it will. 



4 THOUGHTS FER DISCURAGED FARMER. 

Some says the crops is ruined, and the corn's drownded out, 
And propha-sy the wheat will be a failure, without doubt; 
But the kind Providence that has never failed us yet, 
Will be on hands onc't more at the 'leventh hour, I bet ! 

Does the medder-lark complane, as he swims high and dry 
Through the waves of the wind and the blue of the sky? 
Does the quail set up and whissel in a disappinted way, 
Er hang his head in silunce, and sorrow all the day? 
Is the chipmuck's health a-failin' ? Does he walk, er does he run? 
Don't the buzzards ooze around up thare jest like they've 

alius done? 
Is they anything the matter with the rooster's lungs er voice? 
Ort a mortul be complainin' when dumb animals rejoice? 

Then let us, one and all, be contented with our lot; 

The June is here this morning, and the sun is shining hot. 

Oh ! let us fill our harts up with the glory of the day, 

And banish ev'ry doubt and care and sorrow fur away! 

Whatever be our station, with Providence fer guide, 

Sich fine circumstances ort to make us satisfied; 

Fer the world is full of roses, and the roses full of dew, 

And the dew is full of heavenly love that drips fer me and you. 



A SUMMER'S DAY. 



A SUMMER'S DAY. 

The Summer's put the idy in 
My head that I'm a boy again; 

And all around s so bright and gay 

I want to put my team away, 

And jest git out whare I can lay 

And soak my hide full of the day ! 
But work is work, and must be done — 
Yit, as I work, I have my fun, 
Jest fancyin' these furries here 
Is childhood's paths onc't more so dear : — 
And so I walk through medder-lands, 

And country lanes, and swampy trails 
Whare long bullrushes bresh my hands; 

And, tilted on the ridered rails 

Of deadnin' fences, "Old Bob White" 
Whissels his name in high delight, 
And whirrs away. I wunder still, 
Whichever way a boy's feet will — 
Whare trees has fell, with tangled tops 

Whare dead leaves shakes, I stop fer breth, 
Heerm' the acorn as it drops — 

H'istin' my chin up still as deth, 
And watchin' clos't, with upturned eyes, 
The tree whare Mr. Squirrel tries 
To hide hisse'f above the limb, 
But lets his own tale tell on him. 



A SUMMER'S DAY. 



I wunder on in deeper glooms — 
Git hungry, hearin' female cries 

From old farm-houses, whare perfumes 
Of harvest dinners seems to rise 

And ta'nt a feller, hart and brane, 

With memories he can't explain. 

I wunder through the underbresh, 

Whare pig-tracks, pintin' to'rds the crick 

Is picked and printed in the fresh 

Black bottom-lands, like wimmern pick 

Theyr pie-crusts with a fork, some way, 

When bakin' fer camp-meetin' day. 

I wunder on and on and on, 

Tel my gray hair and beard is gone, 

And ev'ry wrinkle on my brow 

Is rubbed clean out and shaddered now 

With curls as brown and fare and fine 

As tenderls of the wild grape-vine 

That ust to climb the highest tree 

To keep the ripest ones fer me. 

I wunder still, and here I am 

Wadin' the ford below the dam — 

The worter chucklin' round my knee 

At hornet-welt and bramble-scratch, 
And me a-slippin' 'crost to see 



A SUMMER'S DAY. 



Ef Tyner's plums is ripe, and size 
The old man's wortermelon-patch, 

With juicy mouth and drouthy eyes. 
Then, after sich a day of mirth 
And happiness as worlds is wurth — 

So tired that heaven seems nigh about, — 
The sweetest tiredness on earth 

Is to git home and flatten out — 
So tired you can't lay flat enugh, 
And sort o' wish that you could spred 
Out like molasses on the bed, 
And jest drip off the aidges in 
The dreams that never comes again. 



A HYMB OF FAITH. 



A HYMB OF FAITH. 

O, thou that doth all things devise 

And fashon fer the best, 
He'p us who sees with mortul eyes 

To overlook the rest. 

They's times, of course, we grope in doubt, 

And in afflictions sore; 
So knock the louder, Lord, without, 

And we'll unlock the door. 

Make us to feel, when times looks bad 

And tears in pitty melts, 
Thou wast the only he'p we had 

When they was nothin' else. 

Death comes alike to ev'ry man 
That ever was borned on earth; 

Then let us do the best we can 
To live fer all life's wurth. 

Ef storms and tempusts dred to see 

Makes black the heavens ore, 
They done the same in Galilee 

Two thousand years before. 

But after all, the golden sun 
Poured out its floods on them 

That watched and waited fer the One 
Then borned in Bethlyham. 



A HYMB OF FAITH, 



Also, the star of holy writ 

Made noonday of the night, 
Whilse other stars that looked at it 

Was envious with delight. 

The sages then in wurship bowed, 

From ev'ry clime so fare; 
O, sinner, think of that glad crowd 

That congergated thare! 

They was content to fall in ranks 
With One that knowed the way 

From good old Jurden's stormy banks 
Clean up to Jedgmunt Day. 

No matter, then, how all is mixed 

In our near-sighted eyes, 
All things is fer the best, and fixed 

Out straight in Paradise. 

Then take things as God sends 'em here, 

And, ef we live er die, 
Be more and more contenteder, 

Without a-astin' why. 

O, thou that doth all things devise 

And fashon fer the best, 
He'p us who sees with mortul eyes. 

To overlook the rest. 



IO WORTER-MELON TIME. 



WORTER-MELON TIME. 

Old worter-melon time is a-comin' round again, 
And they ain't no man a-livin' any tickleder'n me, 

Fer the way I hanker after worter-melons is a sin — 

Which is the why and wharefore, as you can plainly see. 

Oh! it's in the sandy soil worter-melons does the "best, 

And its thare they'll lay and waller in the sunshine and the 
dew 

Till they wear all the green streaks clean off of theyr breast; 
And you bet I ain't a-nndin' any fault with them; air you? 

They ain't no better thing in the vegetable line; 

And they don't need much 'tendin', as ev'ry farmer knows; 
And when theyr ripe and ready fer to pluck from the vine, 

I want to say to you theyr the best fruit that grows. 

It's some likes the yeller-core, and some likes the red, 
And it's some says "The little Californy" is the best; 

But the sweetest slice of all I ever wedged in my head, 
Is the old "Edingburg Mounting-sprout," of the west. 

You don't want no punkins nigh your worter-melon vines — 
'Cause, some-way-another, they'll spile your melons, shore; — 

I've seed 'em taste like punkins, from the core to the rines, 
Which may be a fact you have heered of before. 



WORTER-MELON TIME. n 



But your melons that's raised right and 'tended to with care, 

You can walk around amongst 'em with a parent's pride 

and joy, 
And thump 'em on the heads with as fatherly a air 

As ef each one of them was your little girl er boy. 

I joy in my hart jest to hear that rippin' sound 

When you split one down the back and jolt the halves in 

two, 

And the friends you love the best is gethered all around — 

And you says unto your sweethart, "Oh here's the core fer 



you 



p> 



And I like to slice 'em up in big pieces fer 'em all, 
Espeshally the childern, and watch theyr high delight 

As one by one the rines with theyr pink notches falls, 

And they holler fer some more, with unquenched appetite. 

Boys takes to it natchurl, and I like to see 'em eat — 

A slice of worter-melon's like a frenchharp in theyr hands, 

And when they "saw" it through theyr mouth sich music can't 
be beat — 
'Cause it's music both the sperit and the stummick under- 
stands. 

Oh, they's moreinworter-melons than the purty-colored meat, 
And the overflowin' sweetness of the worter squshed be- 
twixt 



12 WORTER-MELON TIME. 



The np'ard and the down'ard motions of a feller's teeth, 
And it's the taste of ripe old age and juicy childhood 
mixed. 

Fer I never taste a melon but my thoughts flies away 
To the summertime of youth; and again I see the dawn, 

And the fadin' afternoon of the long summer day, 

And the dusk and dew a-fallin', and the night a-comin' on. 

And thare's the corn around us, and the lispin' leaves and 
trees, 

And the stars a-peekin' down on us as still as silver mice, 
And us boys in the worter-melons on our hands and knees, 

And the new-moon hangin' ore us like a yeller-cored slice. 

Oh ! it's worter-melon time is a-comin' round again, 
And they ain't no man a-livin' any tickleder'n me, 

Fer the way I hanker after worter-melons is a sin — 

Which is the why and wharefore, as you can plainly see. 



MY PHILOSOFY. 



13 



MY PHILOSOFY. 

I aint, ner don't p'tend to be, 
Much posted on philosofy; 
But thare is times, when all alone, 
I work out idees of my own. 
And of these same thare is a few 
I'd like to jest refer to you — 
Pervidin' that you don't object 
To listen clos't and rickollect. 

I alius argy that a man 
Who does about the best he can 
Is plenty good enugh to suit 
This lower mundane institute — 
No matter ef his daily walk 
Is subject fer his neghbor's talk, 
And critic-minds of ev'ry whim 
Jest all git up and go fer him ! 

I knowed a feller onc't that had 
The yeller-janders mighty bad, 
And each and ev'ry friend he'd meet 
Would stop and give him some receet 
Fer cuorin' of 'em. But he'd say 
He kind o' thought they'd go away 
Without no medicin', and boast 
That he'd git well without one doste. 



14 MY PHILOSOFY. 



He kep' a yellerin' on — and they 
Perdictin' that he"d die some day 
Before he knowed it ! Tuck his bed, 
The feller did, and lost his head, 
And wundered in his mind a spell — 
Then rallied, and, at last, got well; 
But ev'ry friend that said he'd die 
Went back on him eternally ! 

Its natchurl enugh, I guess, 

When some gits more and some gits less, 

Fer them-uns on the slimmest side 

To claim it ain't a fare divide; 

And I've knowed some to lay and wait, 

And git up soon, and set up late, 

To ketch some feller they could hate 

Fer goin' at a faster gait. 

The signs is bad when folks commence 

A findin' fault with Providence, 

And balkin' 'cause the earth don't shake 

At ev'ry prancin' step they take. 

No man is great tel he can see 

How less than little he would be 

Ef stripped to self, and stark and bare 

He hung his sign out anywhare. 



MY PHI LOS OF Y. 15 



My doctern is to lay aside 

Contensions, and be satisfied: 

Jest do your best, and praise er blame 

That follers that, counts jest the same. 

I've alius noticed grate success 

Is mixed with troubles, more er less, 

And its the man who does the best 

That gits more kicks than all the rest. 



16 WHEN THE FROST IS ON THE PUN KIN 



WHEN THE FROST IS ON THE PUNKIN. 

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the 

shock, 
And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the strut tin' turkey- 
cock, 
And the clackin'of the guineys, and the cluckin' of the hens, 
And the rooster's hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence; 
O its then's the times a feller is a-feelin' at his best, 
With the risin' sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest, 
As he leaves the house, bare-headed, and goes out to feed the 

stock, 
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the 
shock. 

They's something kindo' harty-like about the atmosfere 
When the heat of summer's over and the coolin' fall is here — 
Of course we miss the flowers, and the blossoms on the trees, 
And the mumble of the hummin' -birds and buzzin' of the 

bees; 
But the air's so appetizin'; and the landscape through the 

haze 
Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days 
Is a pictur' that no painter has the colorin' to mock — 
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock. 



F0£- 









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WHEN THE FROST IS ON THE PUNKIN. if 

The husky, rusty russel of the tossels of the corn, 
And the raspin of the tangled leaves, as golden as the morn; 
The stubble in the furries — kindo' lonesome-like, but still 
A-preachin' sermuns to us of the barns they growed to fill; 
The strawstack in the medder, and the reaper in the shed; 
The hosses in theyr stalls below — the clover overhead ! — 
O, it sets my hart a-clickin' like the tickin' of a clock, 
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock ! 

Then your apples all is getherd, and the ones a feller keeps 
Is poured around the celler-fioor in red and yeller heaps; 
And your cider-makin's over, and your wimmern-folks is 

through 
With their mince and apple-butter, and theyr souse and 

saussage, too; — 
I don't know how to tell it — but ef sich a thing could be 
As the Angels wantin' boardin', and they'd call around on 

me — 
I'd want to 'commodate 'em — all the whole-indurin' flock, 
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock ! 



18 LITTLE MAHALA ASHCRAFT 



ON THE DEATH OF LITTLE MAHALA ASHCRAFT. 

"Little Haly! Little Haly!" cheeps the robin in the tree; 
"Little Haly!" sighs the clover, "Little Haly!" moans the 

bee; 
"Little Haly! Little Haly!" calls the kill-deer at twilight; 
And the katydids and crickets hollers "Haly" all the night. 

The sunflowers and the hollyhawks droops over the garden 

fence; 
The old path down the gardenwalks still holds her footprints' 

dents; 
And the well-sweep's swingin' bucket seems to wait fer her to 

come 
And start it on its wortery errant down the old bee-gum. 

The bee-hives all is quiet, and the little Jersey steer, 
When any one comes nigh it, acts so lonesome like and queer; 
And the little Banty chickens kind o' cutters faint and low, 
Like the hand that now was feedin' 'em was one they didn't 
know. 



LITTLE MAHAL A ASH CRAFT. 19 

They's sorrow in the wavin' leaves of all the apple-trees; 
And sorrow in the harvest -sheaves, and sorrow in the breeze; 
And sorrow in the twitter of the swallers 'round the shed; 
And all the song her red-bird sings is "Little Haly's dead !" 

The medder 'pears to miss her, and the pathway through the 

grass, 
Whare the dewdrops ust to kiss her little bare feet as she 

passed; 
And the old pin in the gate-post seems to kindo-sorto' doubt 
That Haly's little sunburnt hands'll ever pull it out. 

Did her father er her mother ever love her more'n me, 
Er her sisters er her brother prize her love more tendurly? 
I question — and what answer? — only tears, and tears alone, 
And ev'ry neghbor's eyes is full o' tear-drops as my own. 

"Little Haly ! Little Haly !" cheeps the robin in the tree; 
"Little Haly!" sighs the clover, "Little Haly !" moans the bee; 
"Little Haly! Little Haly!" calls the kill-deer at twilight, 
And the katydids and crickets hollers "Haly" all the night. 



2o THE MULBERRY TREE. 



THE MULBERRY TREE. 

O, its many's the scenes which is dear to my mind 

As I think of my childhood so long left behind; 

The home of my birth, with its old puncheon-floor, 

And the bright morning-glorys that growed round the door; 

The warped clab-board roof whare the rain it run off 

Into streams of sweet dreams as I laid in the loft, 

Countin' all of the joys that was dearest to me, 

And a-thinkin' the most of the mulberry tree. 

And to-day as I dream, with both eyes wide-awake, 
I can see the old tree, and its limbs as they shake, 
And the long purple berries that rained on the ground 
Whare the pastur' was bald whare we trommpt it around. 
And again, peekin' up through the thick leafy shade, 
I can see the glad smiles of the friends when I strayed 
With my little bare feet from my own mother's knee 
To foller them off to the mulberry tree. 

Leanin' up in the forks, I can see the old rail, 

And the boy climbin' up it, claw, tooth, and toe-nail, 

And in fancy can hear, as he spits on his hands, 

The ring of his laugh and the rip of his pants. 

But that rail led to glory, as certin and shore 

As I'll never climb thare by that rout' any more — 

What was all the green lauruls of Fame unto me, 

With my brows in the boughs of the mulberry tree ! 



THE MULBERRY TREE. 21 

Then its who can fergit the old mulberry tree 

That he knowed in the days when his thoughts was as free 

As the flutterin' wings of the birds that flew out 

Of the tall wavin' tops as the boys come about? 

O, a crowd of my memories, laughin' and gay, 

Is a-climbin' the fence of that pastur' to-day, 

And a-pantin' with joy, as us boys ust to be, 

They go racin' acrost fer the mulberry tree. 



22 WILLIAM LEACHMAN. 



TO MY OLD FRIEND, WILLIAM LEACHMAN, 

Fer forty year and better you have been a friend to me, 

Through days of sore afflictions and dire adversity, 

You alius had a kind word of counsul to impart, 

Which was like a healin' 'intment to the sorrow of my hart. 

When I burried my first womern, William Leachman, it was 

you 
Had the only consolation that I could listen to — 
Fer I knowed you had gone through it and had rallied from 

the blow, 
And when you said I'd do the same, I knowed you'd ort to 

know. 

But that time I'll long remember; how I wundered here and 

thare — 
Through the settin'-room and kitchen, and out in the open 

air — 
And the snowfiakes whirlin', whirlin', and the fields a frozen 

glare, 
And the neghbors' sleds and wagons congergatin' ev'rywhare. 

I turned my eyes to'rds heaven, but the sun was hid away; 
I turned my eyes to'rds earth again, but all was cold and gray; 
And the clock, like ice a-crackin', clickt the icy hours in 

two — 
And my eyes'd never thawed out ef it hadn't been fer you ! 



WILLIAM LEA CUM AN. 



23 



We set thare by the smoke-house — me and you out thare 

alone — 
Me a-thinkin' — you a-talkin' in a soothin' undertone — 
You a-talkin' — me a-thinkin' of the summers long ago, 
And a-writin' "Marthy— Marthy" with my ringer in the snow! 

William Leachman, I can see you jest as plane as I could then; 
And your hand is on my shoulder, and you rouse me up again; 
And I see the tears a-drippin' from your own eyes, as you say: 
''Be rickonciled and bear it — we but linger fer a day!" 

At the last Old Settlers' Meetin' we went j'intly, you and 

me — 
Your hosses and my wagon, as you wanted it to be; 
And sence I can remember, from the time we've neghbored 

here, 
In all sich friendly actions you have double-done your sheer. 

It was better than the meetin', too, that 9-mile talk we had 
Of the times when we first settled here and travel was so bad; 
When we had to go on hoss-back, and sometimes on "Shanks's 

mare, " 
And "blaze" a road fer them behind that had to travel thare. 

And now we was a-trottin' 'long a level gravel pike, 
In a big two-hoss road-wagon, jest as easy as you like — 
Two of us on the front seat, and our wimmern-folks behind, 
A-settin' in theyr Winsor cheers in perfect peace of mind ! 



24 WILLIAM LEACHMAN. 

And we pinted out old landmarks, nearly faded out of sight : — 
Thare they ust to rob the stage-coach; thare Gash Morgan 

had the fight 
With the old stag-deer that pronged him — how he battled fer 

his life, 
And lived to prove the story by the handle of his knife. 

Thare the first griss-mill was put up in the Settlement, and we 
Had tuck our grindin' to it in the Fall of Forty-three — 
When we tuck our rifles with us, techin' elbows all the way, 
And a-stickin' right together ev'ry minute, night and day. 

Thare ust to stand the tavern that they called the "Travelers' 

Rest," 
And thare, beyent the covered bridge, "The Counterfitters' 

Nest"— 
Whare they claimed the house was ha'nted — that a man was 

murdered thare, 
And burried underneath the floor, er 'round the place some- 

whare. 

And the old Plank-road they laid along in Fifty-one er two — 
You know we talked about the times when the old road was 

new: 
How "Uncle Sam" put down that road and never taxed the 

State 
Was a problum, don't you rickollect, we couldn't dimonstrate? 




And thare, beyent the covered bridge, "The Counterfitters' Nest." 



WILLIAM LEACHMAN. 25 

Ways was devius, William Leachman, that me and you has 

past; 
But as I found you true at first, I find you true at last; 
And, now the time's a-comin' mighty nigh our jurney's end, 
I want to throw wide open all my soul to you, my friend. 

With the stren'th of all my bein', and the heat of hart and 

brane, 
And ev'ry livin' drop of blood in artery and vane, 
I love you and respect you, and I venerate your name, 
Fer the name of William Leachman and True Manhood's jest 

the same! 



26 MY FIDDLE. 



MY FIDDLE. 

My FIDDLE?— Well, I kindo' keep her handy, don't you 

know! 
Though I aint so much inclined to tromp the strings and 

switch the bow 
As I was before the timber of my elbows got so dry, 
And my fingers was more limber-like and caperish and spry; 
Yit I can plonk and plunk and plink, 

And tune her up and play, 
And jest lean back and laugh and wink 
At ev'ry rainy day ! 

My playin's only middlin' — tunes I picked up when a boy — 
The kindo'-sorto' fiddlin' that the folks calls "cordaroy;" 
"The Old Fat Gal," and "Rye-straw," and "My Sailyor's on 

the Sea," 
Is the old cowtillions / "saw" when the ch'ice is left to me; 
And so I plunk and plonk and plink, 

And rosum-up my bow, 
And play the tunes that makes you think 
The devil's in your toe ! 



MY FIDDLE. 27 



I was alius a romancin', do-less boy, to tell the truth, 
A-fiddlin' and a-dancin', and a-wastin' of my youth, 
And a-actin' and a-cuttin'-up all sorts o' silly pranks 
That wasn't worth a button of anybody's thanks! 
But they tell me, when I ust to plink 

And plonk and plunk and play, 
My music seemed to have the kink 
O' drivin' cares away! 

That's how this here old fiddle's won my hart's indurin love ! 
From the strings acrost her middle, to the schreechin' keys 

above — 
From her "apern," over "bridge," and to the ribbon round her 

throat, 
She's a wooin', cooin' pigeon, singin' "Love me" ev'ry note! 
And so I pat her neck, and plink 
Her strings with lovin' hands, 
And, list'nin' clos't, I sometimes think 
She kindo' understands ! 



28 THE CLOVER. 



THE CLOVER. 

Some sings of the lilly, and daisy, and rose, 

And the pansies and pinks that the Summertime throws 

In the green grassy lap of the medder that lays 

Blinkin' up at the skyes through the sunshiney days; 

But what is the lilly and all of the rest 

Of the flowers, to a man with a hart in his brest 

That was dipped brimmin' full of the honey and dew 

Of the sweet clover-blossoms his babyhood knew? 

I never set eyes on a clover-field now, 

Er fool round a stable, er climb in the mow, 

But my childhood comes back jest as clear and as plane 

As the smell of the clover I'm sniffm' again; 

And I wunder away in a bare-footed dream, 

Whare I tangle my toes in the blossoms that gleam 

With the dew of the dawn of the morning of love 

Ere it wept ore the graves that I'm weepin' above. 

And so I love clover — it seems like a part 
Of the sacerdest sorrows and joys of my hart; 
And wharever it blossoms, oh, thare let me bow 
And thank the good God as I'm thankin' Him now; 
And I pray to Him still fer the stren'th when I die, 
To go out in the clover and tell it good-bye, 
And lovin'ly nestle my face in its bloom 
While my soul slips away on a breth of purfume. 



NEGHBORLY POEMS 

ON FRIENDSHIP, GRIEF AND FARM-LIFE 



US FARMERS in the country, as the seasons go and come, 
Is purty much like other folks, — we're apt to griwible some! 
The Spring's too backward fer us, er too forward — ary one — ■ 
We" 1 11 jaw about it anyhow, and have our way er none ! 
The thaw's set in too suddent; er the frost's stayed in the soil 
Too long to give the w heat a chance, and crops is bound to spoil! 
The weather's either most too mild, er too outrageous rough, 
And altogether too much rain, er not half rain enugh! 

Noiv what Pd like and what you'd like is plane enugh to see: 
Its jest to have old Providence drop round on you and me 
And ast us what our views is first, regardin' shine er rain, 
And post 'em when to shet her off, er let her on again ! 
And yit Pd rut her, after all — consider n other chores 
P got on hands, a'-tendin' both to my affairs and yours — . 
Pd rzither miss the blame Pd git, a-rulin' things up thare. 
And spend my ex try time in praise and gratitude and prayer. 



\ 




ERASMUS WILSON. 33 



ERASMUS WILSON. 

'Ras Wilson, I respect you, 'cause 
You're common, like you alius was 
Afore you went to town and s'prised 
The world by git tin' "reckonized," 
And yit perservin, as I say, 
Your common hoss-sense ev'ryway ! 
And when that name o' yourn occurs 
On hand-bills, er in newspapers, 
Er letters writ by friends 'at ast 
About you, same as in the past, 
And neghbors and relations 'low 
You're out o' the tall timber now, 
And "gittin' thare" about as spry's 
The next ! — as / say, when my eyes, 
Er ears, lights on your name, I mind 
The first time 'at I come to find 
You — and my Rickollection yells, 
Jest jubilunt as old sleigh-bells — 
" 'Ras Wilson! Say! Hold up! and shake 
A. paw, fer old acquaintance sake!" 



34 



ERASMUS WILSON. 



My Rickollection, more'n like, 
Haint overly too apt to strike 
That what's-called cultchurd public eye 
As wisdum of the deepest dye, — 
And yit my Rickollection makes 
So blame lots fewer bad mistakes, 
Regardin' human-natchur' and 
The fellers 'at I've shook theyr hand, 
Than my best j edge/mint's done, the day 
I've met 'em — 'fore I got away, — 
'At — Well, 'Ras Wilson, let me grip 
Your hand in warmest pardnership ! 

Dad-burn ye! — Like to jest haul back 
A' old flat-hander, jest che-whack! 
And take you 'tvvixt the shoulders, say, 
Sometime you're lookin' t'other way! — 
Er, maybe whilse you're speakin' to 
A whole blame Courthouse-full o 1 'thu- 
Syastic friends, I'd like to jest 
Come in-like and break up the nest 
Afore you hatched anuther cheer, 
And say: " 'Ras, /can't stand hitched here 
All night — ner wouldn't ef I could! — 
But Little Bethel neghborhood, 
You ust to live at, 's sent some word 
Fer you, ef ary chance occurred 



ERASMUS WILSON. 



To git it to ye,— so ef you 

Kin stop, I'm waitin' fer ye to !" 

You're common as I said afore 

You're common, yit uncommon more. 

You alius kindo' 'pear, to me, 

What all mankind had ort to be 

Jest natchurl, and the more hurraws 

You git, the less you know the cause 

Like as ef God Hisself stood by, 

Where best on earth hain't half knee-high, 

And seein' like, and' knowin' He 

'S the Only Great Man really, 

You're jest content to size your hight 

With any feller-man's in sight. 

And even then they's scrubs, like me, 
Feels stuck-up, in your company ! 

Like now: — I want to go with you 

Plum out o' town a mile er two 

Clean past the Fair-ground whare's some hint 

O' pennyrile er peppermint, 

And bottom-lands, and timber thick 

Enugh to sorto' shade the crick ! 

I want to see you — want to set 

Down somers, whare the grass hain't wet, 



36 ERASMUS WILSON. 



And kindo' breathe you, like puore air — 
And taste o' your tobacker thare, 
And talk and chaw ! Talk o' the birds 
We've knocked with cross-bows, — Afterwards 
Drop, mayby, into some dispute 
'Bout "pomgrannies," er cal'mus-root — 
And how they growed, and whare ? — on tree 
Er vine ? — Who's best boy-memory! — 
And wasn't it gingsang, insted 
O' Cal'mus-root, growed like you said? — 
Er how to tell a coon-track from 
A mussrat's ; — er how milksick come — 
Er ef cows brung it ? — Er why now 
We never see no "muley"-cow — 
Ner "frizzly"-chicken — ner no "clay- 
Bank" mare — ner no thin' thataway! — 
And what's come o' the yeller-core 
Old wortermelons ? — hain't no more. — ■ 
Tomattusus, the same — all red- 
Uns nowadays — All past joys fled — ■ 
Each and all jest gone k- whizz ! 
Like our days o' childhood is ! 

Dag-gone it, Ras ! they hain't no friend, 
It 'pears-like, left to comperhend 
Sich things as these but you, and see 
How dratted sweet they air to me ! 



ERASMUS WILSON. 37 

But you, ' at 's loved 'em alius, and 
Kin sort 'em out and understand 
'Em, same as the fine books you've read, 
And all fine thoughts you've writ, er said, 
Er worked out, through long nights o' rain, 
And doubts and fears, and hopes, again, 
As bright as morning when she broke, — 
You know a teardrop from a joke! 

And so, 'Ras Wilson, stop and shake 

A paw, fer old acquaintance sake ! 



38 MY RUTHERS. 



MY RUTHERS. 

[Writ durin' State Fair at Indanoplis, whilse visitin' a Soninlaw 
then residin' thare, who has sence got back to the country whare 
he says a man that's raised thare ort to a-stayed in the first place.] 

I tell you what I'd ruther do — 
Ef I only had my ruthers, — 
I'd ruther work when I wanted to 
Than be bossed round by others; — 
I'd ruther kindo' git the swing 
O' what was needed, first, I jing! 
Afore I swet at anything!— 
Ef I only had my ruthers; — 
In fact I'd aim to be the same 
With all men as my brothers; 
And they'd all be the same with me — 
Ef I only had my ruthers. 

I wouldn't likely know it all — 
Ef I only had my ruthers; — 
I'd know some sense, and some base-ball — 
Some old jokes, and — some others: 
I'd know some politics, and 'low 
Some tarif-speeches same as now, 
Then go hear Nye on "Branes and How 
To Detect Theyr Presence." T' others, 
That stayed away, I'd let 'em stay — 
All my dissentin' brothers 



MY RUTHERS. 39 



Could chuse as shore a kill er cuore, 
Ef I only had my ruthers. 

The pore 'ud git theyr dues sometimes — 

Ef I only had my ruthers, — 
And be paid dollars 'stid o' dimes, 
Fer childern, wives and mothers: 

Theyr boy that slaves; theyr girl that sews 
Fer others — not herself, God knows! — 
The grave's her only change of clothes ! 
. . . Ef I only had my ruthers, 
They'd all have "stuff' and time enugh 

To answer one-another's 
Appealin' prayer fer "lovin' care" — 
Ef I only had my ruthers. 

They'd be few folks 'ud ast fer trust, 

Ef I only had my ruthers, 
And blame few business-men to bu'st 
Theyrselves, er harts of others: 

Big Guns that come here durin' Fair- 
Week could put up jest anywhare, 
And find a full-and-plenty thare, 
Ef I only had my ruthers: 
The rich and great 'ud 'sociate 

With all theyr lowly brothers, 
Feelin' we done the honorun— 
Ef I only had my ruthers. 



4 o ON A DEAD BABE. 



ON A DEAD BABE. 

Fly away ! thou heavenly one ! — 

I do hail thee on thy flight ! 
Sorrow? thou hath tasted none — 
Perfect joy is yourn by right. 
Fly away ! and bear our love 
To thy kith and kin above ! 

I can tetch thy finger-tips 

Ca'mly, and bresh back the hair 
From thy forr'ed with my lips, 
And not leave a teardrop thare. — 
Weep fer Tomps and Ruth — and me- 
But I cannot weep fer thee. 



A OLD PLAYED-OUT SONG. \v 



A OLD PLAYED-OUT SONG. 

It's the curiousest tiling in creation, 

Whenever I hear that old song, 
"Do They Miss Me at Home," I'm so bothered, 

My life seems as short as it's long! — 
Fer ev'ry thing 'pears like adzackly 

It 'peared in the years past and gone, — 
When I started out sparkin' at twenty, 

And had my first neckercher on ! 

Though I'm wrinkelder, older and grayer 

Right now than my parents was then, 
You strike up that song, "Do They Miss Me," 

And I'm jest a youngster again! — 
I'm a-standin' back thare in the furries 

A-wishin' fer evening to come, 
And a-whisperin' over and over 

Them words, "Do They Miss Me at Home?" 

You see, Marthy Ellen she sung it 

The first time I heerd it; and so, 
As she was my very first sweethart, 

It reminds me of her, don't you know; — 



42 A OLD PLAYED-OUT SONG. 

How her face ust to look, in the twilight, 
As I tuck her to Spellin'; and she 

Kep' a-hummin' that song tel I ast her, 
Pine-blank, ef she ever missed me ! 

I can shet my eyes now, as you sing it, 

And hear her low answer in' words; 
And then the glad chirp of the crickets, 

As clear as the twitter of birds; 
And the dust in the road is like velvet, 

And the ragweed and fennel and grass 
Is as sweet as the scent of the lillies 

Of Eden of old, as we pass. 

"Do They Miss Me at HomeV Sing it lower- 

And softer — and sweet as the breeze 
That powdered our path with the snowy 

White bloom of the old locus'-trees! 
Let the whipperwills he'p you to sing it, 

And the echoes 'way over the hill, 
Tel the moon boolges out, in a chorus 

Of stars, and our voices is still. 

But, oh! "They's a chord in the music 

That's missed when her voice is away !" 

Though I listen from midnight tel morning, 

And dawn tel the dusk of the day ! 



A OLD PLAYED-OUT SONG. 43 



And I grope through the dark, lookin' up'ards 
And on through the heavenly dome, 

With my longin' soul singin' and sobbin' 
The words, "Do They Miss Me at Home?" 



44 "COON-DOG WESS." 



"COON-DOG WESS." 

"Coon-dog Wess"— he alius went 
'Mongst us here by that-air name. 

Moved in this-here Settlement 

From next county — he laid claim, — 

Lived down in the bottoms — whare 

Ust to be some coons in thare ! — 

In nigh Clayton's, next the crick, — 

Mind old Billy ust to say 
Coons in thare was jest that thick, 

He'p him corn-plant any day! — 
And, in rostneer-time, be then 
Aggin' him to plant again ! 

Well, — In Spring o' '67, 

This-here "Coon-dog Wess" he come- 
Fetchin' 'long 'bout forty-'leven 

Ornriest-lookin' hounds, I gum! 
Ever mortul-man laid eyes 
On sence dawn o' Christian skies! 



"COON-DOG WESS." 45 



Wife come traipsin' at the rag- 

Tag-and-bobtail of the crowd, 
Dogs and childern, with a bag 

Corn-meal and some side-meat, — Proud 
And as independunt — My! — 
Yit a mild look in her eye. 

Well— this "Coon-dog Wess" he jest 

Moved in that-air little pen 
Of a pole-shed, aidgin' west 

On "The Slues o' Death," called then.— 
Otter and mink-hunters ust 
To camp thare 'fore game vam-moosd. 

Abul-bodied man, — and lots 

Call fer choppers — and fer hands 

To git cross-ties out. — But what's 
Work to sich as understands 

Ways appinted and is hence 

Under special providence? — 

"Coon-dog Wess's" holts was hounds 
And coon-huntin > \ and he knowed 

His own range, and stayed in bounds, 
And left work fer them 'at showed 

Talents fer it — same as his 

Gifts regardin' coon-dogs is. 



46 "COON-DOG WESS" 

Hounds of ev'ry mungerl breed 

Ever whelped on earth! — Had these 

Yeller kind, with punkin-seed 

Marks above theyr eyes — and fleas 

Both to sell and keep ! — Also 

These-here lop-yeerd hounds, you know. — 

Yes-and brindle hounds — and long, 

Ga'nt hounds, with them eyes they' got 

So blame sorry, it seems wrong, 
'Most, to kick 'em as to not! 

Man, though, wouldn't dast, I guess, 

Kick a hound fer coon-dog Wess!" 

'Tended to his own affairs 

Stric'ly; — made no brags, — and yit 

You could see 'at them hounds' cares 
'Peared like his, — and he'd a-fit 

Fer 'em, same as wife er child ! — 

Them facts made folks rickonciled, 

Sorto', fer to let him be 

And not pester him. And then 

Word begin to spread 'at he 
Had brung in as high as ten 

Coon-pelts in one night — and yit 

Didn't 'pear to boast of it! 



"COON-DOG WESS" 47 



Neghborhood made some complaints 
'Bout them plague-gone hounds at night 

Howlin' fit to wake the saints, 

Clean from dusk tel plum day-light ! 

But to "Coon-dog Wess" them-thare 

Howls was "music in the air!" 

Fetched his pelts to Gilson's Store- 
Newt he shipped fer him, and said, 

Sence he'd cooned thare, he'd shipped more 
Than three hunderd pelts!— "By Ned! 

Git shet of my store," Newt says, 

"I'd go in with 'Coon-dog Wess' !" 

And the feller 'peared to be 

Makin' best and most he could 
Of his rale prospairity: — 

Bought some household things — and good,- 
Likewise, wagon- load onc't come 
From wharever he'd moved from. 

But pore feller's huntin'-days, 

'Bout them times, was glidin' past! — 

Goes out onc't one night and stays! 
. . . Neghbors they turned out, at last, 

Headed by his wife and one 

Half-starved hound — and search begun. 



4 8 "COON-DOG WESS." 

Boys said, that blame hound, he led 
Searchin' party, 'bout a half 

Mile ahead, and bellerin', said, 
Worse'n ary yearlin' calf! — 

Tel, at last, come fur-off sounds 

Like the howl of other hounds. 

And-sir, shore enugh, them signs 
Fetched 'em — in a' hour er two — 

Whare the pack was; — and they finds 

"Coon-dog Wess" right thare; — And you 

Would admitted he was right 

Staying as he had, all night! 

Facts is, cuttin' down a tree, 
The blame thing had sorto' fell 

In a twist-like — mercy me! 

And had ketched him. — Couldn't tell, 

Wess said, how he'd managed — yit 

He'd got both legs under it ! 

Fainted and come to, I s'pose, 
'Bout a dozen times whilse they 

Chopped him out ! — And wife she froze 
To him ! — bresh his hair away 

And smile cheerful' — only when 

He'd faint. — Cry and kiss him then. 



"COON-DOG WESS." 49 



Had his nerve !— And nussed him through,- 
Neghbors he'pped her— all she'd stand.— 

Had a loom, and she could do 
Carpet-weavin' railly grand ! — 

"'Sides," she ust to laugh and say, 

"She'd have Wess, now, night and day!" 

As fer him> he'd say, says-ee, 
"I'm resigned to bein' lame:— 

They was four coons up that tree, 
And hounds got 'em, jest the same !" 

'Peared like, one er two legs less 

Never worried "Coon-dog Wess !" 



So PERFESSER JOHN CLARK RID PA TH. 



LINES TO 
PERFESSER JOHN CLARK RIDPATH A. M., LL. D. T-Y-TY! 



[Cumposed by A Old Friend of the Fambily sence 'way back in 
the Forties, when they Settled nigh Fillmore, Putnum County, this 
State, whare John was borned and growed up, you might say, like 
the wayside flower.] 



Your neghbors in the country, whare you come from, haint 

f ergot ! — 
We knowecl you even better than your own-self, like as not. 
We profissied your runnin'-geers 'ud stand a soggy load 
And pull her, purty stiddy, up a mighty rocky road: 
We been a-watchin your career sence you could write your 

name — 

But way you writ it first, I'll say, was jest a burnin' shame: — 

Your "J. C."in the copybook, and "Ridpath" — mercy-sakes! — 

Quiled up and tide in dubble bows, lookt like a nest o' snakes ! — 

But you could read it, I suppose, and kindo' gloted on 

A-bein' U J. C. Ridpath' 1 '' when we only called you "John. " 

But you'd work 's well as fool, and what you had to do was 

done: 
We've watched you at the woodpile — not the woodshed — 

wasent none, — 



PERFESSER JOHN CLARK RID PATH. 51 

And snow and sleet, and haulm', too, and lookin' after stock, 
And milkin', nights, and feedin' pigs, — then turnin' back the 

clock, 
So's you could set up study in' your 'Rethmatic, and fool 
Your Parents, whilse a-piratin' your way through winter 

school ! 
And I've heerd tell — from your own folks — you've set and 

baked your face 
A-readin' Plutark Slives all night by that old fi-er-place. — 
Yit, 'bout them times, the blackboard, onc't, had on it, I 

dfe-clare, 
"Yours truly, J. Clark Ridpath,"— and the teacher — left 

it thare! 

And they was other symptums, too, that pinted, plane as day 
To nothin' short of College ! — and one was the lovin' way 
Your mother had of cheerin' you to efforts brave and strong, 
And puttin' more faith in you, as you needed it along; 
She'd pat you on the shoulder, er she'd grab you by the hands, 
And laugh sometimes, er cry sometimes. — They's few that 

.understands 
Jest what theyr mother's drivin' at when they act thataway; — ■ 
But I'll say this fer yozc, John-Clark, — you answered, night 
and day, 
To ev'ry trust and hope of hers — and half your College 

fame 
Was battled fer and won fer her and glory of her name. 



52 PERFESSER JOHN CLARK RIDPATH. 

The likes of you at College! But you went there. How you 

paid 
Your way nobody's astin' — but you worked, — you haint 

afraid, — 
Your clothes was, more'n likely, kindo' out o' style, perhaps, 
And not as snug and warm as some 'at hid the other chaps; — 
But when it come to Intullect— they tell me yourn was dressed 
A leetle mite super ber, like, than any of the rest ! 
And thare you stayed — and thare you've made your rickord, 

fare and square — 
Tel now its Fame 'at writes your name, approvin', ev'rywhare — 
Not jibblets of it, nuther, — but all John Clark Ridpath, set 
Plum 'at the dashboard of the whole-endurin' Alphabet ! 



THE AIRL Y DA VS. 53 



A TALE OF THE AIRLY DAYS. 

Oh ! tell me a tale of the airly days — 

Of the times as they ust to be; 
"Piller of Fi-er" and "Shakspeare's Plays" 

Is a' most too deep fer me! 
I want plane facts, and I want plane words, 

Of the good old-fashiond ways, 
When speech run free as the songs of birds 

'Way back in the airly days. 

Tell me a tale of the timber-lands — 

Of the old-time pioneers; 
Somepin' a pore man understands 

With his feelins's well as ears. 
Tell of the old log house, — about 

The loft, and the puncheon floor — 
The old fi-er-place, with the crane swung out, 

And the latch-string through the door. 



54 THE AIRL Y DA VS. 

Tell of the things jest as they was — 

They don't need no excuse! — 
Don't tech 'em up' like the poets does, 

Tel theyr all too fine fer use ! — 
Say they was 'leven in the fambily — 

Two beds, and the chist, below, 
And the trundle-beds that each helt three, 

And the clock and the old bureau. 

Then blow the horn at the old back-door 

Tel the echoes all halloo, 
And the childern gethers home onc't more, 

Jest as they ust to do: 
Blow fer Pap tel he hears and comes, 

With Tomps and Elias, too, 
A-marchin' home, with the fife and drums 

And the old Red White and Blue ! 

Blow and blow tel the sound draps low 

As the moan of the whipperwill, 
And wake up Mother, and Ruth and Jo, 

All sleepin' at Bethel Hill: 
Blow and call tel the faces all 

Shine out in the back-log's blaze, 
And the shadders dance on the old hewed wall 

As they did in the airly days. 



"MYLO JONES'S WIFE" 55 



"MYLO JONES'S WIFE." 

"Mylo Jones's Wife" was all 

I heerd, mighty near, last Fall — 

Visitun relations down 

Tother side of Morgantown ! 

Mylo Jones's wife she does 

This and that, and "those" and "thus" ! — 

Can't 'bide babies in her sight — 
Ner no childern, day and night, 

Whoopin' round the premises — 
Ner no not/iin* else, I guess! 

Mylo Jones's wife she 'lows 

She's the boss of her own house ! — 

Mylo — consequences is — 

Stays whare things seem some like his, — 

Uses, mostly, with the stock — 

Coaxin' "Old Kate" not to balk, 

Ner kick hossflies' branes out, ner 

Act, I s'pose, so much like her ! 

Yit the wimmern-folks tells you 

She's perfection. — Yes they do ! 



56 "MYLO JONES'S WIFE" 



Mylo's wife she says she's found 

Home haint home with men-folks round, 

When they's work like kern to do — 

Picklin' pears and butchern, too, 

And a-rendern lard, and then 

Cookin fer a pack of men 

To come trackin' up the floor 

She's scrubbed tel she'll scrub no more ! — 

Yit she'd keep things clean ef they 

Made her scrub tel Jedgmunt Day ! 

Mylo Jones's wife she sews 
Carpet-rags and patches clothes 
Jest year in and out ! — and yit 
Whare's the livin' use of it ? 
She asts Mylo that. — And he 
Gits back whare he'd ruther be, 
With his team; — jest filozus — and don't 
Never sware — like some folks wont ! 
Think ef he'd cut loose, I gum ! 
'D he'p his heavenly chances some ! 

Mylo's wife don't see no use, 
Ner no reason ner excuse 
Fer his pore relations to 
Hang round like they alius do ! 



"MYLO JONES'S WIFE." 57 

Thare 'bout onc't a year — and she — 
She jest gamuts 'em, folks tells me, 
On spiced pears ! — Pass Mylo one, 
He says "No, he don't chuse none!" 
Workin' men like Mylo they 
'D ort to have meat ev'ry day! 

Dad-burn Mylo Jones's wife! 
Ruther rake a blame caseknife 
'Crost my wizzen than to see 
Sich a womern rulin' me ! — 
Ruther take and turn in and 
Raise a fool mule-colt by hand ! 
Mylo, though — od-rot the man ! — 
Jest keeps ca'm — like some folks can — 
And 'lows sich as her, I s'pose, 
Is Mail's hepmeet ! — Mercy knows ! 



58 ON A SPLEND UD MA TCH. 



ON A SPLENDUD MATCH. 



[On the night of the marraige of the foregoin' couple, which shall 
be nameless here, these lines was ca'mly dashed off in the albun of 
the happy bride whilse the shivver-ree was goin' on outside the 
residence.] 



He was warned aginst trie womern- 
She was warned aginst the man.- 

And ef that won't make a weddin', 
Wy, they's nothin' else that can ! 



OLD JOHN CLEVENGER. 59 



OLD JOHN CLEVENGER ON BUCKEYES. 

Old John Clevenger lets on, 

Alius, like he's purty rough 
Timber, — He's a grate old John ! — 

"Rough?" — don't swaller no sich stuff! 
Moved here, sence the war was through, 

From Ohio — somers near 
Old Bucyrus, — loyal, too, 

As us "Hoosiers" is to here! 
Git old John stirred up a bit 

On his old home stompin' -ground — 
Talks same as he lived thare yit, 

When some subject brings it round — 
Like, fer instunce, Sund'y last, 

Fetched his wife, and et and stayed 
All night with us. — Set and gassed 

Tel plum midnight — 'cause I made 
Some remark 'bout "buckeyes" and 

"What was buckeyes good fer?" — So, 
Like I 'lowed, he waved his hand 

And lit in and let me know: — 



6o OLD JOHN CLEVENGER. 

" 'What is Buckeyes good fer ?' — What's 
Pineys and fergitmenots ? — 
Honeysuckles, and sweet-peas, 
And sweet -williamsuz, and these 
Johnny-jump-ups ev'rywhare, 
Growin' round the roots o' trees 
In Spring-weather ? — what air they 
Good fer ? — kin you tell me — Hey ? 
'Good to. look at ?' Well they air ! 
'Specially when Winter' 1 's gone, 
Clean dead-certin ! and the wood's 
Green again, and sun feels good's 
June ! — and shed your blame boots on 
The back porch, and lit out to 
Roam round like you ust to do, 
Barefoot, up and down the crick, 
Whare the buckeyes growed so thick, 
And witch-hazel and pop-paws, 
And hackberries and black-haws — 
With wild pizen-vines jis knit 
Over and eii-nunder it, 
And wove round it all, I jing ! 
Tel you couldn't hardly stick 
A durn caseknife through the thing ! 
Wriggle round through that\ and then — 
All het-up, and scratched and tanned, 
And muskeeter-bit and mean- 



OLD JOHN CLEVENGER. 61 



Feelin' — all at onc't again, 
Come out suddent on a clean 
Slopin' little hump o' green 
Dry soft grass, as fine and grand 
As a pollor-sofy ! — And 
J is pile down thare ! — and tell me 
Anywhares you'd ruther be — 
'Ceptin' right thare, with the wild- 
Flowrs all round ye, and your eyes 
Smiliii' with 'em at the skies, 
Happy as a little child! 
Well ! — right here, I want to say, 
Poets kin talk all they please 
'Bout 'wild-flowrs, in colors gay', 
And 'sweet blossoms flauntin' theyr 
Beauteous fragrunce on the breeze' — 
But the sight o' buckeyes jis 
Sweet to me as blossoms is ! 

"I'm Ohio-born — right whare 
People's all called 'Buckeyes' thare- 
' Cause, I s'pose, our buckeye crap's 
Biggest in the world, perhaps ! — 
Ner my head don't stretch my hat 
Too much on account o' that ' — 
'Cause it's Natchur's ginerus hand 
Sows 'em broadcast ore the land, 



62 OLD JOHN CLEVENGER. 

With eye-single fer man's good 

And the gineral neghborhood ! 

So buckeyes jis natchurly 

'Pears like kith-and-kin to me! 

'Slike the good old sayin' wuz, 

'Purty is as pnrty does /' — 

We can't eat 'em, cooked er raw — 

Yit, I mind, tomattusuz 

Wuz considered pizenus 

OncH — and dassent eat 'em ! — Pshaw — 

'Twouldn't take me by supprise, 

Someday, ef we et buckeyes! 

That, though, 's nuther here ner thare !- 

yis the Buckeye, whare we air, 

In the present times, is what 

Ockuppies my lovin' care 

And my most perfoundest thought ! 

. . . Guess, this minute, what I got 

In my pocket, 'at I've packed 

Purt-'nigh forty year.' — A dry, 

Slick and shiny, warped and cracked, 

Wilted, weazened old buckeye! 

What's it thare fer ? What's my hart 

In my brest fer ? — 'Cause its part 

Of my life — and 'tends to biz — 

Like this buckeye's bound to act— * 

'Cause it 'tends to RhumatizX 



OLD JOHN CLEVENGER. 63 



". . .Ketched more rhumatiz than fish, 

Seinen', onc't — and pants froze on 

My blame legs ! — And ust to wish 

I wuz well er dead and gone ! 

Doc give up the case, and shod 

His old hoss again and stayed 

On good roads! — And thare I laid! 

Pap he tuck some bluegrass sod 

Steeped in whisky, bilin'-hot, 

And socked that on ! Then I got 

Sorto' holt o' him, somehow — 

Kindo' crazy like, they say — 

And I'd killed him, like as not, 

Ef I hadn't swooned away! 

Smell my scortcht pelt purt 'nigh now ! 

Well — to make a long tale short — 

I hung on the blame disease 

Like a shavin'-hoss! and sort 

O' wore it out by slow degrees — 

Tell my legs wuz straight enugh 

To poke through my pants again 

And kick all the doctor-stuff 

In the fier-place ! Then turned in 

And tuck Daddy Craig's old cuore — 

yis a buckeye — and that's shore. — 

Haint no case o' rhumatiz 

Kin subsist whare buckeyes is!" 



64 THE HOSS. 



THE HOSS. 



The hoss he is a splendud beast; 

He is man's friend, as heaven designed, 
And, search the world from west to east, 

No honester you'll ever find ! 

Some calls the hoss "a pore dumb brute," 
And yit, like Him who died fer you, 

I say, as I theyr charge refute, 

" 'Fergive; they know not what they do!' " 

No wiser animal makes tracks 

Upon these earthly shores, and hence 

Arose the axium, true as facts, 

Extolled by all, as "Good hoss-sense!" 

The hoss is strong, and knows his stren'th, — 
You hitch him up a time er two 

And lash him, and he'll go his le'nth, 
And kick the dashboard out fer you ! 

But, treat him alius good and kind, 
And never strike him with a stick, 

Ner aggervate him, and you'll find 
He'll never do a hostile trick. 



THE HOSS. 65 



A hoss whose master tends him right 
And worters him with daily care, 

Will do your biddhT with delight, 
And act as docile as you air. 

He'll paw and prance to hear your praise, 
Because he's learnt to love you well; 

And, though you can't tell what he says, 
He'll nicker all he wants to tell. 



He knows you when you slam the gate 
At early dawn, upon your way 

Unto the barn, and snorts elate, 
To git his corn, er oats, er hay. 

He knows you, as the orphant knows 
The folks that loves her like theyr own, 

And raises her and "finds" her clothes, 
And "schools" her tel a womern-grown ! 

I claim no hoss will harm a man, 
Ner kick, ner run away, cavort, 

Stump-suck, er balk, er "catamaran," 
Ef you'll jest treat him as you ort. 
5 



66 THE HOSS. 



But when I see the beast abused, 

And clubbed around as I've saw some, 

I want to see his owner noosed, 
And jest yanked up like Absolum J 

Of course they's differunce in stock,- 

A hoss that has a little yeer, 
And slender build, and shaller hock, 

Can beat his shadder, mighty near ! 

Whilse one that's thick in neck and chist 
And big in leg and full in flank, 

That tries to race, I still insist 

He'll have to take the second rank, 



And I have jest laid back and laughed, 
And rolled and wallered in the grass 

At fairs, to see some heavy-draft 
Lead out at first, yit come in last! 



Each hoss has his appinted place, — 
The heavy hoss should plow the soil;- 

The blooded racer, he must race, 
And win big wages fer his toil. 



THE HOSS. 67 



I never bet — ner never wrought 
Upon my feller-man to bet — 

And yit, at times, I've often thought 
Of my convictions with regret. 

I bless the hoss from hoof to head— 
From head to hoof, and tale to mane !- 

I bless the hoss, as I have said, 

From head to hoof, and back again ! 



I love my God the first of all, 

Then him that perished on the cross; 

And next, my wife, — and then I fall 
Down on my knees and love the hoss. 



68 EZRA HOUSE. 



EZRA HOUSE. 



[These lines was writ, in rather high sperits, jest at the close of 
what's called the Anti Bellum Days, and more to be a-foolin' than 
anything else, — though they is more er less facts in it. But some of 
the boys, at the time we was all a-singin' it, fer Ezry's benefit, to 
the old tune of "The Oak and the Ash and the Bonny Wilier Tree," 
got it struck off in the weekly, without leave er lisence of mine; and 
so sence they's alius some of 'em left to rigg me about it yit, I might 
as well claim the thing right here and now, so here goes. I give it 
jest as it appeard, fixed up and grammatisized consider'ble, as the 
editer told me he took the liburty of doin', in that sturling old home 
paper The Advance — as sound a paper yit to-day and as stanch and 
abul as you'll find in a hunderd.] 



Come listen, good people, while a story I do tell, 
Of the sad fate of one which I knew so passing well; 
He enlisted at McCordsville, to battle in the south, 
And protect his country's union; his name was Ezra House. 

He was a young school-teacher, and educated high 
In regards to Ray's arithmetic, and also Algebra: 
He give good satisfaction, but at his country's call 
He dropped his position, his Algebra and all. 

"Its Oh, I'm going to leave you, kind scholars," he said — 
For he wrote a composition the last day and read; 
And it brought many tears in the eyes of the school, 
To say nothing of his sweetheart he was going to leave so 
soon. 



EZRA HOUSE. 69 



"I have many recollections to take with me away, 
Of the merry transpirations in the school-room so gay; 
And of all that's past and gone I will never regret 
I went to serve my country at the first of the outset !" 

He was a good penman, and the lines that he wrote 
On that sad occasion was too fine for me to quote, — 
For I was there and heard it, and I ever will recall 
It brought the happy tears to the eyes of us all. 

And when he left, his sweetheart she fainted away, 

And said she could never forget the sad day 

When her lover so noble, and gallant and gay, 

Said "Fare you well, my true love !" and went marching away. 

But he hadn't been gone for more than two months, 
When the sad news come — "he was in a skirmish once, 
And a cruel rebel ball had wounded him full sore 
In the region of the chin, through the canteen he wore. " 

But his health recruited up, and his wounds they got well, 
But whilst he was in battle at Bull Run or Malvern Hill, 
The news come again, so sorrowful to hear — 
"A sliver from a bombshell cut off his right ear." 

But he stuck to the boys, and it's often he would write, 
That "he wasn't afraid for his country to fight." 
But oh, had he returned on a furlough, I believe 
He would not, to-day, have such cause to grieve. 



70 EZRA HOUSE. 



For in another battle — the name I never heard — 

He was guarding the wagons when an accident occurred, — 

A comrade who was under the influence of drink, 

Shot him with a musket through the right cheek, I think. 

But his dear life was spared; but it hadn't been for long, 
'Till a cruel rebel colonel come riding along, 
And struck him with his sword, as many do suppose, 
For his cap-rim was cut off, and also his nose. 

But Providence, who watches o'er the noble and the brave, 
Snatched him once more from the jaws of the grave; 
And just a little while before the close of the war, 
He sent his picture home to his girl away so far. 

And she fell into decline, and she wrote in reply, 
"She had seen his face again and was ready to die;" 
And she wanted him to promise, when she was in her tomb, 
He would only visit that by the light of the moon. 

But he never returned at the close of the war, 
And the boys that got back said he hadn't the heart; 
But he got a position in a powder-mill, and said 
He hoped to meet the doom that his country denied. 



A PEN-PI CTUR\ 71 



A PEN-PICTUR' 
OF A CERTIN FRIVVOLUS OLD MAN. 

Most ontimely old man yit ! 

'Pear-like sometimes he jest tries 

His fool-self, and takes the bitt 
In his teeth and jest de-fies 

All perpryties ! — Lay and swet 
Doin' nothirt — only jest 

Sorto' speckillatun on 

Whare old summertimes is gone, 
And 'bout things that he loved best 

When a youngster ! Heerd him say 

Springtimes made him thataway — 
Speshully on Sundays — when 
Sun shines out and in again, 

And the lonesome old hens they 
• Git off under the old kern- 
Bushes, and in deep concern 

Talk-like to theyrselvs, and scratch 
Kindo' absunt -minded, jest 

Like theyr thoughts was fur away 

In some neghbor's gyarden-patch 
Folks has tended carefullest ! 



72 A PEN-PI CTUR\ 

Heerd the old man dwell on these 

Idys time and time again ! — 
Heerd him claim that orchurd-trees 

Bloomin', put the mischief in 
His old hart sometimes that bad 
And owdacious that he "had 

To break loose someway," says he, 

"Ornry as I ust to be!" 

Heerd him say one time — when I 
Was a sorto' standin' by, 

And the air so still and clear, 

Heerd the bell fer church clean here !- 
Said : "Ef I could climb and set 

On the old three-cornerd rail 
Old home-place, nigh Maryette', 

Swop my soul off, hide and tale !" 
And-sir ! blame ef tear and laugh 
Didn't ketch him half and half! 

"Oh!" he says, "to wake and be 
Barefoot, in the airly dawn 

In the pastur! — thare," says he, 
"Standin' whare the cow's slep' on 

The cold, dewy grass that's got 

Print of her jest steamy hot 
Fer to warm a feller's heels 
In a while ! — How good it feels ! 



A PEN-PIC TUR\ 73 

Sund'y ! — Country ! — Morning ! — Hear 
Nothin' but the silunce. — see 

Nothin' but green woods and clear 
Skies and unwrit poetry 
By the acre ! . . . Oh !" says he, 

"What's this voice of mine? — to seek 

To speak out, and yit cartt speak ! 

" Think! — the lazyest of days" — 

Takin' his contrairyest leap, 

He went on, — "git up, er sleep — 
Er whilse feedin', watch the haze 

Dancin' 'crost the wheat, — and keep 
My pipe goin' laisurely — 
Puff and whiff as pleases me, — ■ 

Er I'll leave a trail of smoke 
Through the house! — no one'll say 
' 'Throw that nasty thing awayP 

'Pear-like nothin' sacerd's broke, 
Goin' barefoot ef I chuse ! — 

I have fiddled ; — and dug bait 
And went fishin" 1 ; — pitched hoss-shoes — 
Whare they couldn't see us from 
The main road. — And I've beat some. 

I've set round and had my joke 
With the thrashers at the barn — 
And I've swopped 'em yarn fer yarn ! — 



74 A PEN-PICTUR\ 



Er I've hepped the childern poke 
Fer hens' -nests. — agged on a match 
Twixt the boys, to watch 'em scratch 

And paw round and rip and tear, 

And bust buttons and pull hair 
To theyr rompin' harts' content — 

And me jest a-settin' thare 
Hatchin' out more devilment ! 

"What you s'pose now ort to be 
Done with sich a man ?" says he — 
"Sich a fool-old-man as me I" 



WE T- WE A THER TALK. 75 



WET-WEATHER TALK. 

It hain't no use to grumble and complane; 

It's jest as cheap and easy to rejoice; 
When God sorts out the weather and sends rain, 
W'y, rain's my choice. 

Men giner'ly, to all intents— 

Although they're apt to grumble some- 
Puts most theyr trust in Providence, 
And takes things as they come- 
That is, the commonality 
Of men that's lived as long as me 
Has watched the world enugh to learn 
They're not the boss of this concern. 

With some, of course, it's different— 

I've saw young men that knowed it all, 
And didn't like the way things went 
On this terrestial ball;— 

But all the same, the rain, some way, 
Rained jest as hard on picnic day; 
Er, when they railly wanted it, 
It mayby wouldn't rain a bit! 



76 WET-WEATHER TALK. 



In this existunce, dry and wet 

Will overtake the best of men — 
Some little skift o' clouds'll shet 
The sun off now and then. — 

And mayby, whilse you're wundern who 
You've fool-like lent your umbrelP to, 
And zvant it — out'll pop the sun, 
And you'll be glad you hain't got none! 

It aggervates the farmers, too — 

They's too much wet, er too much sun, 
Er work, er waitin' round to do 
Before the plowin's done. 

And mayby, like as not, the wheat, 
Jest as it's lookin' hard to beat, 
Will ketch the storm — and jest about 
The time the corn's a-jintin' out. 

These-here cy-clones a-foolin' round — 

And back'ard crops ! — and wind and rain !— 
And yit the corn that's wallerd down 
May elbow up again ! — 

They hain't no sense, as 1 can see, 
Fer mortuls, sich as us, to be 
A-faultin' Natchur's wise intents, 
And lockin' horns with Providence ! 



WET-WEATHER TALK. 77 

It hain't no use to grumble and complane; 

Its jest as cheap and easy to rejoice. — 
When God sorts out the weather and sends rain, 
Wy, rain's my choice. 



78 A PORE JOKE. 



THOUGHTS ON A PORE JOKE. 

I like fun — and I like jokes 
'Bout as well as most o' folks! — 

Like my joke, and like my fun; — 
But a joke, I'll state right here, 
'Sgot some p'int — er I don't keer 

Fer no joke that haint got none. — 
I haint got no use, I'll say, 
Fer a pore joke, anyway! 

F'rinstunce, now, when some folks gits 
To rely in' on theyr wits, 
Ten to one they git too smart 
And spile it all, right at the start ! 
Feller wants to jest go slow 
And do his thinkin? first, you know. 
'F I can't think up somepin' good, 
I set still and chaw my cood ! 

'F you think nothin' — jest keep on, 
But don't say it — er you're gone! 



A MORTUL PRAYER. 79 



A MORTUL PRAYER. 

OH ! Thou that vaileth from all eyes 

The glory of thy face, 
And setteth throned behind the skies 

In thy abiding-place: 
Though I but dimly recko'nize 

Thy purposes of grace; 
And though with weak and wavering 

Deserts, and vexd with fears, 
I lift the hands I cannot wring 

All dry of sorrow's tears, 
Make puore my prayers that daily wing 

Theyr way unto thy ears! 

Oh ! with the hand that tames the flood 

And smooths the storm to rest, 
Make bammy dews of all the blood 

That stormeth in my brest, 
And so refresh my hart to bud 

And bloom the loveliest. 
Lull all the clammer of my soul 

To silunce; bring release 
Unto the brane still in controle 

Of doubts; bid sin to cease, 
And let the waves of pashun roll 

And kiss the shores of peace. 



80 A MORTUL PRAYER. 

Make me to love my feller-man — 

Yea, though his bitterness 
Doth bite as only adders can — 

Let me the fault confess, 
And go to him and clasp his hand 

And love him none the less. 
So keep me, Lord, ferever free 

From vane concete er whim; 
And he whose pius eyes can see 

My faults, however dim, — 
Oh ! let him pray the least fer me, 

And me the most fer him. 



THE FIRST BL UEBIRD. 



THE FIRST BLUEBIRD. 

Jest rain and snow ! and rain again ! 
And dribble ! drip ! and blow ! 

Then snow ! and thaw ! and slush ! and then- 
Some more rain and snow! 

This morning I was 'most afeard 

To wake up — when, I jing! 
T seen the sun shine out and heerd 

The first bluebird of Spring ! — 
Mother she'd raised the winder some; — 
And in acrost the orchurd come, 

Soft as a angel's wing, 
A breezy, treesy, beesy hum, 

Too sweet fer anything ! 

The winter's shroud was rent a-part — 

The sun bust forth in glee, — 
And when that bhiebird sung, my hart 

Hopped out o' bed with me! 



6 



82 EVA GENE BAKER. 



EVAGENE BAKER — WHO WAS DYIN OF DRED CONSUM- 
TION AS THESE LINES WAS PENNED BY A TRUE FRIEND. 

Pore afflicted Evagene! 

Whilse the woods is fresh and green, 

And the birds on ev'ry hand 

Sings in rapture sweet and grand, — 

Thou, of all the joyus train, 

Art bedridden, and in pain 
Sich as only them can cherish 
Who, like flowrs, is first to perish! 

When the neghbors brought the word 

She was down the folks inferred 

It was jest a cold she'd caught, 

Dressin' thinner than she'd ort 

Fer the frolicks and the fun 

Of the dancin' that she'd done 
'Fore the Spring was flush er ary 
Blossom on the peach er cherry. 



EVA GENE BAKER. S3 



But, last Sund'y, her request 

Fer the Church's prayers was jest 

Rail hart-renderin' to hear! — 

Many was the silunt tear 

And the tremblin' sigh, to show 

She was dear to us below 

On this earth — and dearer, even, 
When we thought of her a-leavin' ! 

Sisters prayed, and coted from 
Genesis to Kingdom-come 
Provin' of her title clear 
To the mansions.— "Even her," 
They claimed, "might be saved, someway, 
Though she'd danced and played crowkay, 
And wrought on her folks to git her 
Fancy shoes that never fit her !" 

Us to pray fer Evagene ! — 
With her hart as puore and clean 
As a rose is after rain 
When the sun comes out again ! — 
What's the use to pray fer her ? 
She don't need no prayin' fer! — 
Needed, all her life, more playirt 
Than she ever needed prayin' ! 



84 EVA GENE BAKER. 



I jest thought of all she'd been 
Sence her mother died, and when 
She turned in and done her part — 
All her cares on that child-hart ! — 
Thought of years she'd slaved — and had 
Saved the farm — danced and was glad . . . 
Mayby Him who marks the sporry 
Will smooth down her wings tomorry ! 



ON ANY ORDENAR Y MAN. 85 



ON ANY ORDENARY MAN IN A HIGH STATE OF LAUGH- 
TURE AND DELIGHT. 

As its give' me to percieve, 

I most certin'y believe 

When a man's jest glad plum through, 

God's pleased with him, same as you. 



$6 TO WN AND COUNTR Y. 



TOWN AND COUNTRY. 

They's a predjudice alius twixt country and town 

Which I wisht in my hart wasent so. 
You take city people, jest square up and down, 

And theyr mighty good people to know: 
And whare's better people a-livin', to-day, 

Than us in the country ? — Yit good 
As both of us is, we're divorsed, you might say, 

And won't compermise when we could! 

Now as nigh into town fer yer Pap, ef you please, 

Is the what's called the sooburbs. — Fer thare 
You'll at least ketch a whiff of the breeze and a snift 

Of the breth of wild-flowrs ev'rywhare. 
They's room fer the childern to play, and grow, too— 

And to roll in the grass, er to climb 
Up a tree and rob nests, like they ortent to do, 

But they'll do anyhow ev'ry time ! 

My Son-in-law said, when he lived in the town, 
He jest natchurly pined, night and day, 

Fer a sight of the woods, er a acre of ground 
Whare the trees wasent all cleared away! 



TO WN AND CO UNTR Y. 87 

And he says to me onc't, whilse a-visitin' us 
On the farm, "It's not strange, I declare, 

That we can't coax you folks, without raisin' a fuss, 
To come to town, visitin' thare!" 

And says I, "Then git back whare you sorto' belong — 

And Madaline, too, — and yer three 
Little childern," says I, "that don't know a bird-song, 

Ner a hawk from a chicky-dee-dee ! 
Git back," I-says-I, "to the blue of the sky 

And the green of the fields, and the shine 
Of the sun, with a laugh in yer voice and yer eye 

As harty as Mother's and mine!" 

Well — long-and-short of it, — he's compermised some — 

He's moved in the sooburbs. — And now 
They don't haf to coax, when they want us to come, 

'Cause we turn in and go anyhow ! 
Fer thare — well, they's room fer the songs and purfume 

Of the grove and the old orchurd-ground, 
And they's room fer the childern out thare, and they's room 

Fer theyr Gran' pap to waller 'em round ! 



88 LINES FER ISAAC BR AD WELL. 



LINES FER ISAAC BRADWELL, OF INDANOPLIS, IND., 
COUNTY-SEAT OF MARION. 



[Writ on the flyleaf of a volume of the author's poems that come 
in one of gittin' burnt up in the great Bowen-Merrill's fire of March 
17, 1890.] 



Through fire and flood this book has passed. — 

Fer what? — I hardly dare to ast — 

Less'n its still to pamper me 

With extry food fer vanity; — 

Fer, sence its fell in hands as true 

h% yourn is — and a Hoosier too, — 

I'm prouder of the book, I jmg! 

Than 'fore they tried to burn the thing! 



DECORATION DAY ON THE PLACE. 89 



DECORATION DAY ON THE PLACE. 

Its lonesome — sorto' lonesome, — its a Sunday -day, to me, 
It 'pears-like — more'n any day I nearly ever see ! 
Yit, with the Stars and Stripes above, a-flutterin' in the air, 
On ev'ry Soldier's grave I'd love to lay a lilly thare. 

They say, though, Decoration Days is ginerly observed 
'Most evWywhares — espeshally by soldier-boys that's served. — 
But me and Mother's never went — we seldom git away, — 
In pint o' fact, we're alius home on Decoration Day. 

They say the old boys marches through the streets in colum's 

grand, 
A -f oiler in' the old war-tunes theyr playin' on the band — 
And citizuns all jinin' in — and little childern, too — 
All marchin 1 , under shelter of the old Red White and Blue. — 

With roses ! roses ! roses ! — ev'rybody in the town ! — 

And crowds o' little girls in white, jest fairly loaded down! — 

Oh! don't The Boys know it, from theyr camp acrost the 

hill ?— 
Don"t they see theyr com'ards comin' and the old flag wavin' 

still ? 



9 o DECORATION DAY ON THE PLACE. 

Oh! can't they hear the bugul and the rattle of the drum? — 
Ain't they no way under heavens they can rickollect us some ? 
Ain't they no way we can coax 'em, through the roses, jest to 

say 
They know that ev'ry day on earth's theyr Decoration Day ? 

We've tried that — me and Mother, — whare Elias takes his rest, 
In the orchurd — in his uniform, and hands acrost his brest, 
And the flag he died fer, smilin' and a-ripplin' in the breeze 
Above his grave — and over that, — the robin in the trees ! 

And yit its lonesome — lonesome! — It's a Sund'y-day, tome, 
1 1 'pears-like — more'n any day I nearly ever see ! — 
Still, with the Stars and Stripes above, a-flutterin' in the air, 
On ev'ry Soldier's grave I'd love to lay a lilly thare. 



DIALECT IN LITERATURE 



DIALECT IN LITERATURE. 

"And the common people heard him gladly T 

Of what shall be said herein of dialect, let it be 
understood the term dialect referred to is of that 
general breadth of meaning given it to-day, name- 
ly, any speech or vernacular outside the prescribed 
form of good English in its present state. The 
present state of the English is, of course, not any 
one of its prior states. So first let it be remarked 
that it is highly probable that what may have been 
the best of English once may now by some be 
counted as a weak, inconsequent jbatois, or dia- 
lect. 

To be direct, it is the object of this article to 
show that dialect is not a thing to be despised in 
any event — that its origin is oftentimes of as royal 
caste as that of any speech. Listening back, from 
the standpoint of to-day, even to the divine sing- 
ing of that old classic master to whom England's 
late laureate refers as 

"... the first warbler, whose sweet breath 
Preluded those melodious bursts that fill 
The spacious times of great Elizabeth 
With sounds that echo still ; " 

95 



96 DIALECT IN LITERATURE. 

or to whom Longfellow alludes, in his matchless 
sonnet, as 

"... the poet of the dawn, who wrote 
The Canterbury Tales, and his old age 
Made beautiful with song ; — " 

Chaucer's verse to us is now as veritably dialect as 
to that old time it was the chastest English ; and 
even then his materials were essentially dialect 
when his song was at best pitch. Again, our 
present dialect, of most plebeian ancestry, may 
none the less prove worthy. Mark the recogni- 
tion of its own personal merit in the great new 
dictionary, where what was, in our own remem- 
brance, the most outlandish dialect, is now good, 
sound, official English. 

Since Literature must embrace all naturally ex- 
isting materials — physical, mental, and spiritual — 
we have no occasion to urge its acceptance of so- 
called dialect, for dialect is in Literature, and has 
been there since the beginning of all written 
thought and utterance. Strictly speaking, as well 
as paradoxically, all verbal expression is more or 
less dialectic however grammatical. While usage 
establishes grammar, it no less establishes so-called 
dialect. Therefore we may as rightfully refer to 
"so-called grammar." 



DIALECT IN LITERATURE. 97 

It is not really a question of Literature's posi- 
tion toward dialect that we are called upon to con- 
sider, but rather how much of Literature's valua- 
ble time shall be taken up by this dialectic coun- 
try cousin. This question Literature her gracious 
self most amiably answers by hugging to her breast 
voluminous tomes, from Chaucer on to Dickens, 
from Dickens on to Joel Chandler Harris. And 
this affectionate spirit on the part of Literature, in 
the main, we all most feelingly indorse. 

Briefly summed, it would appear that dialect 
means something more than mere rude form of 
speech and action — that it must, in some righteous 
and substantial way, convey to us a positive force 
of soul, truth, dignity, beauty, grace, purity and 
sweetness that may even touch us to the tender- 
ness of tears. Yes, dialect as certainly does all 
this as that speech and act refined may do it, and 
for the same reason : it is simply, purely natural 
and human. 

Yet the Lettered and the Unlettered powers are 
at swords' points, and very old and bitter foemen, 
too, they are. As fairly as we can, then, let us 
look over the field of these contending forces and 
note their diverse positions : First, the Lettered 
— they who have the full advantages of refined ed- 
ucation, training, and association — are undoubt- 



g8 dialect in literature. 

edly as wholly out of order among the Unlettered 
as the Unlettered are out of order in the exalted 
presence of the Lettered. Each faction may in 
like aversion ignore or snub the other ; but a long- 
suffering Providence must bear with the society of 
both. There may be one vague virtue demon- 
strated by this feud : each division will be found 
unwaveringly loyal to its kind, and mutually they 
desire no interchange of sympathy whatever. — 
Neither element will accept from the other any 
patronizing treatment; and, perhaps, the more 
especially does the Unlettered faction reject any 
thing in vaguest likeness of this spirit. Of the 
two divisions, in graphic summary, — one knows 
the very core and center of refined civilization, and 
this only ; the other knows the outlying wilds and 
suburbs of civilization, and this only. Whose, 
therefore, is the greater knowledge, and whose 
the just right of any whit of self-glorification ? 

A curious thing, indeed, is this factional pride, 
as made equally manifest in both forces; in one, 
for instance, of the Unlettered forces: The aver- 
age farmer, or countryman, knows, in reality, a 
far better and wider range of diction than he per- 
mits himself to use. He restricts and abridges the 
vocabulary of his speech, fundamentally, for the 
reason that he fears offending his rural neighbors, 



DIALECT IN LITERATURE. 99 

to whom a choicer speech might suggest, on his 
part, an assumption — a spirit of conscious superi- 
ority, and therewith an implied reflection on their 
lack of intelligence and general worthiness. If 
there is any one text universally known and nur- 
tured of the Unlettered masses of our common 
country, it is that which reads, "All men are cre- 
ated equal." Therefore it is a becoming thing 
when true gentility prefers to overlook some vari- 
ations of the class, who, more from lack of culti- 
vation than out of rude intent, sometimes almost 
compel a positive doubt of the nice veracity of 
the declaration, or at least a grief at the munifi- 
cent liberality of the so-bequoted statement. 
The somewhat bewildering position of these con- 
flicting forces leaves us nothing further to consider, 
but; how to make the most and best of the situa- 
tion so far as Literature may be hurt or helped 
thereby. 

Equally with the perfect English, then, dialect 
should have full justice done it. Then always it 
is worthy, and in Literature is thus welcome. 
The writer of dialect should as reverently venture 
in its use as in his chastest English. His effort in 
the scholarly and elegant direction suffers no neg- 
lect — he is schooled in that, perhaps, he may ex- 
plain. Then let him be schooled in dialect be- 



ioo DIALECT IN LITERATURE. 

fore he sets up as an expounder of it — a teacher, 
forsooth a master! The real master must not only 
know each varying light and shade of dialect ex- 
pression, but he must as minutely know the inner 
character of the people whose native tongue it is, 
else his product is simply a pretence — a willful 
forgery, a rank abomination. Dialect has been, 
and is thus insulted, vilified and degraded, now 
and continually; and through this outrage solely, 
thousands of generous-minded readers have been 
turned against dialect who otherwise would have 
loved and blessed it in its real form of crude pur- 
ity and unstrained sweetness — 

i 

" Honey dripping from the comb l" 

Let no impious faddist, then, assume its just in- 
terpretation. He may know everything else in the 
world, but not dialect, nor dialectic people, for 
both of which he has supreme contempt, which 
same, be sure, is heartily returned. Such a "su- 
perior" personage may even go among these sim- 
ple country people and abide indefinitely in the 
midst of them, yet their more righteous contempt 
never for one instant permits them to be their real 
selves in his presence. In consequence, his most 
conscientious report of them, their ways, lives, and 
interests, is absolutely of no importance or value 



DIALECT IN LITERATURE. 101 

in the world. He never knew them, nor will he 
ever know them. They are not his kind of peo- 
ple, any more than he is their kind of man ; and 
their disappointment grieves us more than his. 

The master in Literature, as in any Art, is that 
"divinely gifted man" who does just obeisance to 
all living creatures, "both man and beast and 
bird." It is this master only who, as he writes, 
can sweep himself aside and leave his humble 
characters to do the thinking and the talking. 
This man it is who celebrates his performance — 
not himself. His work he celebrates because it is 
not his only, but because he feels it the conscien- 
tious reproduction of the life itself — as he has seen 
and known and felt it;— a representation it is of 
God's own script, translated and transcribed by 
the worshipful mind and heart and hand of genius. 
This virtue in all art is impartially demanded, and 
genius only can fully answer the demand in any 
art for which we claim perfection. The painter 
has his expression of it, with no slighting of the 
dialectic element ; so, too, the sculptor, the musi- 
cian, and the list entire. In the line of Literature 
and literary material, an illustration of the nice 
meaning and distinction of dialectic art will be 
found in Charles Dudley Warner's comment of 
George Cable's work, as far back as 1883, refer- 



102 DIALECT IN LITERATURE. 

ring to the author's own rendition of it from the 
platform. Mr. Warner says : 

" While the author was unfolding to his audience a life 
and society unfamiliar to them and entrancing them with 
pictures, the reality of which none doubted and the spell 
of which none cared to escape, it occurred to me that here 
was the solution of all the pother we have recently got 
into about the realistic and the ideal schools in fiction. 
In ' Posson Jone,' an awkward camp-meeting country 
preacher is the victim of a vulgar confidence game ; the 
scenes are the street, a drinking-place, a gambling-saloon, 
a bull-ring, and a calaboose ; there is not a ' respectable ' 
character in it. Where shall we look for a more faithful 
picture of low life ? Where shall we find another so viv- 
idly set forth in all its sordid details ? And yet s-ee how 
art steps in, with the wand of genius, to make literature ! 
Over the whole the author has cast an ideal light ; over a 
picture that, in the hands of a bungling realist, would have 
been repellent he has thrown the idealizing grace that 
makes it one of the most charming sketches in the world. 
Here is nature, as nature only ought to be in literature, 
elevated but never departed from." 

So we find dialect, as a branch of Literature, 
worthy of the high attention and employment of 
the greatest master in letters — not the merest 
mountebank. Turn to Dickens, in innumerable 
passages of pathos : the death of poor Jo, or that 
of the " Cheap John's " little daughter in her fath- 
er's arms, on the foot-board of his peddling cart 



DIALECT IN LITERATURE. 103 

before the jeering of the vulgar mob ; smile 
moistly, too, at Mr. Sleary's odd philosophies; 
or at the trials of Sissy Jupe ; or lift and tower 
with indignation, giving ear to Stephen Blackpool 
and the stainless nobility of his cloyed utterances. 
The crudeness or the homeliness of the dialectic 
element does not argue its unfitness any way. 
Some readers seem to think so ; but they are 
wrong, and very gravely wrong. Our own brief 
history as a nation, and our finding and founding 
and maintaining of it, left our forefathers little 
time indeed for the delicate cultivation of the 
arts and graces of refined and scholarly attain- 
ments. And there is little wonder, and great 
blamelessness on their part, if they lapsed in 
point of high mental accomplishments, seeing 
their attention was so absorbed by propositions 
looking toward the protection of their rude farm- 
homes, their meager harvests, and their half- 
stabled cattle from the dread invasion of the In- 
dian. Then, too, they had their mothers and 
their wives and little ones to protect, to clothe, 
to feed, and to die for in this awful line of 
duty, as hundreds upon hundreds did. These 
sad facts are here accented and detailed not so 
much for the sake of being tedious as to more 
clearly indicate why it was that many of the truly 



104 DIALECT IN LITERATURE. 

heroic ancestry of " our best people'' grew un- 
questionably dialect of caste — not alone in speech, 
but in every mental trait and personal address. 
It is a grievous fact for us to confront, but many 
of them wore apparel of the commonest, talked 
loudly, and doubtless said " thisaway " and " that- 
away," and " Watchy' doin' of?" and "Whur 
y' goin' at ?" — using dialect even in their prayers 
to Him who, in His gentle mercy, listened and 
was pleased; and who listens verily unto this 
hour to all like prayers, yet pleased; yea, haply 
listens even to the refined rhetorical petitions of 
those who are not pleased. 

There is something more at fault than the lan- 
guage when we turn from or flinch at it ; and, as 
has been intimated, the wretched fault may be 
skulkingly hidden away in the ambush of ostensi- 
ble dialect — that type of dialect so copiously pro- 
duced by its sole manufacturers, who, utterly stark 
and bare of the vaguest idea of country life or 
country people, at once assume that all their 
" gifted pens" have to do is to stupidly misspell 
every word ; vulgarly mistreat and besloven every 
theme, however sacred; maim, cripple, and dis- 
figure language never in the vocabulary of the 
countryman — then smuggle these monstrosities of 
either rhyme or prose somehow into the public 



DIALECT IN LITERATURE. 105 

print that is to innocently smear them broadcast all 
over the face of the country they insult. 

How different the mind and method of the true 
intrepreter. As this phrase goes down the man 
himself arises — the type perfect — Colonel Richard 
Malcom Johnston, who wrote "The Dukesbor- 
ough Tales" — an accomplished classic scholar 
and teacher, yet no less an accomplished master 
and lover of his native dialect of middle Georgia. 
He, like Dickens, permits his rustic characters to 
think, talk, act and live, just as nature designed 
them. He does not make the pitiable error of 
either patronizing or making fun of them. He 
knows them and he loves them ; and they know 
and love him in return. Recalling Colonel John- 
ston's dialectic sketches, with his own presentation 
of them from the platform, the writer notes a 
fact that seems singularly to obtain among all 
true dialect writers, namely, that they are also 
endowed with native histrionic capabilities : Hear, 
as well as read, Twain, Cable, Johnston, Page, 
Smith, and all the list, with barely an exception. 

Did space permit, no better illustration of true 
dialect sketch and characterization might here be 
offered than Colonel Johnston's simple story of 
" Mr. Absalom Billingslea," or the short and sim- 
ple annals of his like quaint contemporaries, 



106 DIALECT IN LITERATURE. 

"Mr. Bill Williams," and "Mr. Jonas Lively." 
The scene is the country and the very little coun- 
try town, with landscape, atmosphere, simplicity, 
circumstance — all surroundings and conditions — 
veritable — everything rural and dialectic, no less 
than the simple, primitive, common, wholesome- 
hearted men and women who so naturally live and 
have their blessed being in his stories, just as in 
the life itself. This is the manifest work of the 
true dialect writer and expounder. In every de- 
tail, the most minute, such work reveals the mas- 
ter-hand and heart of the humanitarian as well as 
artist — the two are indissolubly fused— and the re- 
sult of such just treatment of whatever lowly 
themes or characters we can but love and loyally 
approve with all our human hearts. Such masters 
necessarily are rare, and such ripe perfecting as is 
here attained may be in part the mellowing result 
of age and long observation, though it can but be 
based upon the wisest, purest spirit of the man as 
well as artist. 

In no less excellence should the work of Joel 
Chandler Harris be regarded : His touch alike is 
ever reverential. He has gathered up the bruised 
and broken voices and the legends of the slave, 
and from his child-heart he has affectionately 
yielded them to us in all their eerie beauty and 



DIALECT IN LITERATURE. 107 

wild loveliness. Through them we are made to 
glorify the helpless and the weak and to revel in 
their victories. But, better, we are taught that 
even in barbaric breasts there dwells inherently 
the sense of right above wrong — equity above law 
— and the One Unerring Righteousness Eternal. 
With equal truth and strength, too, Mr. Harris 
has treated the dialectic elements of the interior 
Georgia countiy — -the wilds and fastnesses of the 
"Moonshiners." His tale of " Teague Poteet," 
of some years ago, was contemporaneous with the 
list of striking mountain stories from that strong 
and highly gifted Tennesseean, Miss Murfree, or 
" Charles Egbert Craddock." In the dialectic 
spirit her stories charm and hold us. Always 
there is strangely mingled, but most naturally, the 
gentle nature cropping out amid the most desper- 
ate and stoical: the night scene in the isolated 
mountain cabin, guarded ever without and within 
from any chance down-swooping of the minions 
of the red-eyed law ; the great man-group of gen- 
tle giants, with rifles never out of arm's-reach, in 
tender rivalry ranged admiringly around the crow- 
ing, wakeful little boy-baby; the return, at last, 
of the belated mistress of the house — the sister, to 
whom all do great, awkward reverence. Jealous- 
ly snatching up the babe and kissing it, she quer- 



108 DIALECT IN LITERATURE. 

ulously demands why he has not long ago been 
put to bed. "He 'lowed he wouldn't go," is the 
reply. 

Thomas Nelson Page, of Virginia, who wrote 
"Meh Lady" — a positive classic in the Negro 
dialect: his work is veritable — strong and pure 
and sweet ; and as an oral reader of it the doubly 
gifted author, in voice and cadence, natural utter- 
ance, every possible effect of speech and tone, is 
doubtless without rival anywhere. 

Many more, indeed, than may be mentioned 
now there are of these real benefactors and pre- 
servers of the wayside characters, times, and cus- 
toms of our e^er-shifting history. Needless is it 
to speak here of the earlier of our workers in the 
dialectic line — of James Russell Lowell's New 
England " Hosea Bigelow," Dr. Eggleston's 
" Hoosier School-Master," or the very rare and 
quaint, bright prattle of "Helen's Babies." In 
connection with this last let us very seriously in- 
quire what this real child has done that Literature 
should so persistently refuse to give him an abid- 
ing welcome ? Since for ages this question seems 
to have been left unasked, it may be timely now 
to propound it. Why not the real child in Liter- 
ature ? The real child is good enough (we all 
know he is bad enough) to command our admir- 
ing attention and most lively interest in real life, 



DIALECT IN LITERATURE. 109 

and just as we find him "in the raw." Then why- 
do we deny him any righteous place of recognition 
in our Literature ? From the immemorial advent 
of our dear old Mother Goose, Literature has been 
especially catering to the juvenile needs and de- 
sires, and yet steadfastly overlooking, all the time, 
the very principles upon which Nature herself 
founds and presents this lawless little brood of 
hers — the children. It is not the children who are 
out of order; it is Literature. And not only is 
Literature out of order, but she is presumptuous ; 
she is impudent. She takes Nature's children 
and revises and corrects them till "their own 
mother doesn't known them."' This is literal 
fact. So, very many of us are coming to inquire, 
as we've a right, why is the real child excluded 
from a just hearing in the world of letters as he 
has in the world of fact? For instance, what has 
the lovely little ragamuffin ever done of sufficient 
guilt to eternally consign him to the monstrous 
penalty of speaking most accurate grammar all 
the literary hours of the days of the years of his 
otherwise natural life ? — 

" Oh, mother, may I go to school 
With brother Charles to-day ? 
The air is very fine and cool ; 
Oh, mother, say I may ! " — 



1 10 DIALECT IN LITERA TURE. 

— Is this a real boy that would make such a request, 
and is it the real language he would use ? No, we 
are glad to say that it is not. Simply it is a libel, 
in every particular, on any boy, however fondly 
and exactingly trained by parents however zealous 
for his overdecorous future. Better, indeed, the 
dubious sentiment of the most trivial nursery jin- 
gle, since the latter at least maintains the lawless 
though wholesome spirit of the child-genuine.— 

" Hink! Minx! The old witch winks-- 
The fat begins to fry; 
There's nobody home but Jumping Joan, 
Father and mother and I." 

Though even here the impious poet leaves the 
scar of grammatical knowledge upon childhood's 
native diction; and so the helpless little fellow is 
again misrepresented, and his character, to all in- 
tents and purposes, is assaulted and maligned out- 
rageously thereby. 

Now, in all seriousness, this situation ought not 
to be permitted to exist, though to change it seems 
an almost insurmountable task. The general pub- 
lic, very probably, is not aware of the real gravity 
of the position of the case as even unto this day it 
exists. Let the public try, then, to contribute the 
real child to the so-called Child Literature of its 



DIALECT IN LITERS JURE. 1 1 1 

country, and have its real child returned as 
promptly as it dare show its little tousled head in 
the presence of that scholarly and dignified institu- 
tion. Then ask why your real child has been 
spanked back home again, and the wise mentors 
there will virtually tell you that Child Literature 
wants no real children in it, that the real child's 
example of defective grammar and lack of elegant 
deportment would furnish to its little patrician pa- 
trons suggestions very hurtful indeed to their 
higher morals, tendencies and ambitions. Then, 
although the general public couldn't for the life of 
it see why or how, and might even be reminded 
that it was just such a rowdying child itself, and 
that its father — the Father of his Country — was 
just such a child; that Abraham Lincoln was just 
such a lovable, lawless child, and yet was blessed 
and chosen in the end for the highest service man 
may ever render unto man, — all — all this argument 
would avail not in the least, since the elegantly 
minded purveyors of Child Literature can not pos- 
sibly tolerate the presence of any but the refined 
children- — the very proper children — the studiously 
thoughtful, poetic children ; — and these must be 
kept safe from the contaminating touch of our 
rough-and-tumble little fellows in "hodden gray," 
with frowzly heads, begrimed but laughing faces, 



112 DIALECT IN LITERATURE. 

and such awful, awful vulgarities of naturalness, 
and crimes of simplicity, and brazen faith and 
trust, and love of life and everybody in it. All 
other real people are getting into Literature ; and 
without some real children along will they not soon 
be getting lonesome, too? 






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